


The Chains We Wear

by Ahsim



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Dubious Consent, Extortion, M/M, Rape, Self-Loathing, Trowa as you may never have seen him before, additional tags to be added as I think of them, mentions of significant child abuse, unintentional self-harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-11 13:41:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 25
Words: 234,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahsim/pseuds/Ahsim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trowa Barton has a secret, one he has kept his entire life..</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is cross-posted on AFF.net under the username LadyYeinKhan, and on tumblr under the url ahsimwithsake. 
> 
> This is a work of many years. I started it six, seven years ago when I was an exchange student, and it has been the single largest and most important creative endeavor I have yet to undergo. In the time that I have written it, my writing style and understanding of the creative process has significantly changed. Those changes are reflected in my writing and I pray you will forgive the ever altering style of my writing. Most especially in the beginning.
> 
> As of right now, The Chains We Wear is nineteen chapters long. I am in the process of writing twenty. I'll be posting chapters here in sets of five to catch up to AFF.net.
> 
> This has been an ongoing labor of a lifetime for me, one that it is beautiful and frightening. I have never felt more connected with a piece of writing than I have with this. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> ~Ahsim~

Sheets bunched up at the base of the bed. Pillows strewn across the floor. Sunlight poured through the cracks of the semi closed blinds, falling on the tossing body lying spread eagle on the sweat drenched cloth. Soft whimpers broke through the chorus of morning birds that chirped happily outside the covered window. He keened, body arched off the bed, groaning and clawing at the mattress beneath him. Sweat beaded across his brow only to slid down the side of his face and cool. His body quivered at its chilling touch. Growing groans and pants escaped his lips as he arched, body contorting in the midst of dreaming. How long, how long were they going to torture him like this? How long did he have to suffer?

“Trowa, get up! You’re going to miss breakfast!”

Emerald eyes shot open as the lithe body crumpled to the disheveled bed. Prostrate, spread eagle upon his back, he stared up into the suddenly unfamiliar ceiling waiting for his heart to stop pounding so mercilessly against his ribs. The emerald orbs darted back and forth in rapid succession; what was this strange room again?

“Trowa are you up?” The voice was softer this time, far gentler than the voice that had managed to rouse him from his nightmare. Slowly, the fog lifted off his prone and slightly shaky form. Trowa took a moment to look about his own bedroom. Relief slowly washed over him…along with a strangely darker emotion that stained its purity.

“I’m up. I’ll be there soon.” He answered just loud enough to pass through the wood of his door. He could almost hear the thankful sigh that Quatre probably released.

“Breakfast won’t be really ready for another ten minutes, so you don’t have to rush.”

Trowa held a hand over his eyes, headache present even in the dimness. “Alright, thank you.” He listened closely to the soft footsteps that were gradually moving from his door. He marveled for a moment in how soft, how considerate, Quatre was in many things; even his walk was gentle and soundless, mindful of those around him and desiring nothing to distract them from their duties, whatever they may be. One would think that in his chosen profession that would be a mark of weakness. Trowa thought otherwise. What better way to study an enemy’s movements than to be more silent than a shadow?

What better way to find the enemy’s weakness than to be more gentle than blossom, more disarming than a drop of rain? Quatre had become a powerful ally. And a far more dangerous foe.

With a gentle grunt, Trowa forced his suddenly heavy body upwards. His knees bent slightly on their own accord so that he could better balance his head in his hands. He waited for a moment or so for the spastic pain to settle to a dull ache before sliding himself to the edge of the bed and setting his feet upon the floor. He had always despised waking to a cold floor so he was quite thankful that they had given a bedroom with carpeting. Sleeping with socks on, even in the dead of winter, was something that was just strangely uncomfortable.

He yawned gently, stretching languidly towards the ceiling. Trowa’s body still felt the longing grip for sleep. But he also knew that he could not heed that call now. There were things that had to be done. He stood and stepped away from the bed, letting the rush of blood to his limbs wake him further. He paused, passing a short gaze over his shoulder; once again, Trowa’s restless sleep had demolished the well-made bed that he had fallen asleep in. A frown crossed his face. How long had it been since Trowa Barton had had a truly restful night of sleep?

_Too long…_

Frowning more to himself, he crossed to the short dresser that he kept up against the wall and pulled open the top drawer. He wasn’t even sure why he kept a dresser; he didn’t keep enough clothes to really make much of a necessity out of it. The closet worked far better. Still, it had its uses. He rooted lightly through the clothing in the drawer, searching. He knew he had put it in there the night before. Trowa was always meticulous of where he put it.  _Where is it? I know it’s here. I put it here last night, I know I did._  Oh if he had put it somewhere else. What if he had left it out, in sight? What if someone found it? He felt a shudder go through him. He didn’t even want to consider that. That thought made his nightmares seem almost pleasant.

His fingers brushed against a different style of cloth. Trowa let out a sigh of relief; he had put it back in its spot. It was the perfect place to hide it. Still in the open and yet it was hidden from those who realized that Trowa did not forgive those who invaded his privacy. Pulling it out, Trowa caught a brief glance of his own reflection in the mirror hanging above it. He bit back a sneer. He had tried. He had tried quite hard to convince them that he didn’t need a mirror in his bedroom, that he could make do without one. But they had all been quite insistent and his persistence at its absence would have become very suspicious soon enough. Begrudgingly, Trowa had let them do as they will and hang the damned thing. He had even done an excellent job of pretending to be pleased with their thoughtfulness at hanging the torture device in his bedroom.

Trowa hated his reflection. He didn’t need its daily reminder of just how screwed up he was.

Resisting the urge to shatter the menacing object quite well, Trowa stepped away from the dresser with the item in hand, crossing to the closet. He pulled it open a little harsher than necessary and took another few seconds to calm his raging emotions to the trained placidness that he had schooled himself to keep. With a shake of his head, Trowa reached into the closet and pulled out just the items he needed: the uniform that had become a part of himself recently. He kicked the closet door closed lightly and laid the set on the bed, staring at them for a moment. It seemed like such a strange outfit to him, he still was hardly used to it. It was a mark that things had changed for him. But he supposed that change was a good thing. The gundams were no longer necessary in this society now that the war was over…he needed something to do with his life.  _But there isn’t much that I am truly skilled at._

He should be thankful that he was even given the job. Even if he had yet to start enjoying it.

It was another few minutes or so before he managed to finished buttoning up his uniform. Trowa’s breath came out in a soft pant as he adjusted to his daily ritual. He shifted slowly in his clothes, biting back a wince and waiting calmly for his breathing to return to a semblance of normalcy. He looked himself over in the mirror a second time, a little less annoyed at the reflection looking back at him in the shadow. He looked normal enough now. Almost presentable.  _I have never been presentable._  Sighing quietly, Trowa quietly brushed his tousled hair, managing to get it into that one style that he preferred. True it was a bother to maintain and trying to get the hair junk out at the end of the day meant at least an hour beneath a shower head but Trowa was willing to deal with the cumbersomeness of it; he like the peace of mind that the style gave him. He liked the natural mask that it provided him. Trowa liked being able to hide behind it.

Trowa liked to keep his secrets.

He slipped out of his bedroom silently, sliding the door closed with barely a click. Trowa made a slight face as the bright light of the rest of the house assaulted his eyes. He never could understand why they insisted on having all the blinds up during the early hours of the morning when people were just starting to wake up. It seemed rather inconvenient to him, but he knew better than to complain. They were giving him a place to live, after all. They had opened their home to him and helped him find a job that he could almost actually do. Quatre had explained it as that they were still comrades, still friends even after the war was over. That they should stick close even now in times of peace and hold onto one another. “Conflict brought us all together. We shouldn’t let peace drive us apart.” Strange though, that Trowa did not feel as though he were apart of them.

“Good morning Trowa.” Quatre chimed good naturedly from the kitchen table. He smiled at him as he set out the last of the breakfast dishes that they were going to partake in this morning. Trowa did his best to manage a good natured smile of his own but it felt strained. They always did, but Quatre seemed to notice that he was trying because he beamed at him and offered him the nearest chair. He sat down, biting back a gasp as the movement crushed the air out of his lungs, and thanked Quatre quietly when he set a warm mug of jasmine tea down before him. He inhaled its warm and calming scent slowly. Savored its gentle bouquet with something almost akin to bliss. He had managed to drink a least a fourth of it before Heero and Duo made their appearance together, both decked out quite dashingly in their daily Preventor uniforms, Duo blathering about something or other as usual and Heero making a point to pretend to be at least remotely interested. “Breakfast is almost ready.”

“Great, I’m starving!” Duo laughed. Heero smiled, a tiny little thing, and took the plates that Quatre was carrying to the table for him. He paused for a moment as he set them down. Persian blue eyes swept over Trowa’s Preventor clad form with that same searching stare that he always gave him. Trowa sipped his tea, emerald eye holding the perfect soldier’s gaze.

Finally Heero nodded minutely to himself and straightened. “Good morning Trowa. Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough. Thank you.” he answered after setting the tea down. Heero smiled a bit more and went to retrieve the last of the dishes.

“You seemed to be sleeping plenty fine, since it took me forever to get you to answer me.” Duo laughed, performing his ritualistic morning greeting of trying to dislocate Trowa’s shoulder through a well placed smack on the back. His aim was decidedly lower than usual; the air rushed out of Trowa’s lungs. He grunted softly, holding back his pained gasp and giving Duo his typical look for whenever he invaded his personal space. “What could you possibly have been dreaming about that kept you from hearing me calling you?”

“For five minutes straight.” Heero added softly.

“I wasn’t dreaming. I don’t dream…”

Duo shoved him lightly. “Everyone dreams.”

“I don’t.”

“Sure you do. Come on, tell me. I won’t laugh.”

“Duo…”

“Please???”

“That’s enough. Let’s eat breakfast before we’re all late.” Quatre sighed. Heero smiled a bit more as he set down the last plates.

“Yes. Let’s.” He said, giving Duo a knowing look.

Duo made a face, pouting playfully, but obliged all the same. He took his usual seat on the other side of the table, beside Heero who sat directly across from him. Quatre took his own seat beside Trowa as soon as he was done setting the daily pot of coffee in the center of the table for easy access. It was an item that Heero helped himself to first, pouring a mug for Duo and Quatre before pouring one for himself, as usual. He looked across to Trowa, offering him a mug-full himself. Per usual, Trowa respectful and quietly declined. Trowa preferred his tea.

As usual, it was a rather quiet affair. Only the gentle chinking of silverware and china, a soft sip or two, and the occasional comment on something or other interrupted the heavy quietness that fell over them. Trowa ate mostly benignly; he had never minded the quietness that settled upon them. But as he let his eyes train over his three fellow diners, he had to wonder if it was only his imagination that made them seem strangely tense. As though his presence made them…uncomfortable, somehow. As if they were sickened by his mere existence…

Which was of course ridiculous. They knew nothing. It was only his bizarre imagination playing tricks upon him. There was no way they were uncomfortable with his presence. No way that they could possibly have any inclination to know it… Right?

Trowa bit his fork a little harsher than necessary. He helped himself to salad and attempted to lose his train of thought in the small conversation Heero and Quatre were striking up.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, have you managed to get a hold of that information yet? Une’s been wondering about it.” Heero asked, eyes seemingly focused on the eggs he was half way through with.

Quatre shook his head, swallowing the bit of pancake in his mouth. “No, not yet, unfortunately. I thought I’d have it by now, but he’s proven to be a lot more paranoid than I thought. It’s been hard enough to get as close to him as I have.”

“Don’t do something stupid, Quatre. We don’t need that information to keep moving forward. If it gets to be too difficult, or he starts to get suspicious, just back off and leave it. The last thing we need is for you to lose your position, or worse end up in jail for helping us.”

He shook his head and smiled. “Don’t worry Heero, I can get the information, I just need a little more time. I don’t need to push any harder than I have been but I just need a little more time to get myself in the right position. And I don’t mind helping the Preventors like this.”

“It’s potentially illegal…and with your status now-”

“They all do it, every single one of them. Even the nice ones, like me, dig up information on everyone, competitor and ally alike. I’m just giving it to the proper authorities instead of the newspapers, private companies, or the black market.”

"Just don’t let your guard down. Make sure no one’s trying to dig up the dirt on you. And please don’t get yourself so deep in that you can’t get the hell back out. Remember, that stuff isn’t essentially.”

“No, but it’d sure as hell help.” Duo muttered as he bit into his toast. “I won’t get too far in, I promise. But I know that I can get the info from him, I just have to play my cards right.”

“Well just don’t underestimate him…” Heero sighed.

“Yeah. If you got found out, or arrested, Une would probably-”

Whatever Une would possibly do if such a situation were to arise was lost in the sound of clattering silverware and a soft gagging. Trowa choked down the food in his mouth with much difficultly, his gag reflex activating automatically as he tasted the foreign yet entirely recognizable piece of food that had been buried somewhere in his salad. He fought back a round of bile and reached for his tea to wash away the wretched taste that was settling against his tongue. Draining it quickly, he panted softly, a slow shudder going up his spine, and ignored the startled looks from Duo and Quatre, and the rather questioning one from Heero. He set his mug down as calmly as he could and examined his salad discreetly. He fought back a grimacing look as he confirmed the foreign entity that he had just digested.

There was bacon in the salad.

“You okay, Tro?” Duo asked.

Trowa nodded. “Y-yes, fine.” He muttered. Quatre and Duo exchange confused glances. Heero’s eyes narrowed, a dangerous sign. Trowa wiped his mouth lightly and gave them a calm look. “Just…swallowed wrong. Nothing to be alarmed over. I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Quatre asked.

“Quite.”

He smiled a bit and nodded. “Would you like some more tea Trowa? There’s still some left.”

“No, no thank you.” He replied, helping himself to the last two pancakes to rid himself of the awful taste in his mouth. Quatre, Duo, and Heero had returned to their prior conversation. The matter was seemingly over.

How could he? How could he have been so preoccupied to not notice the salad had bacon in it? How could he had actually  _swallowed_  the stupid thing? Trowa shuddered at the taste lingering in his mouth and took a large bite of pancake; the taste remained stubbornly there. How could he have eaten bacon of all things? Trowa bit the fork savagely at the thought of it, of breaking his morals so very easily. Trowa’s vegetarianism was not something he had adopted at all recently. Even as a child, if he chose to remember that time of his life which was not often, he had disliked the taste of meat. It had grown into a despise as he had been forced to eat it quite often while among the mercenaries. Trowa could just never bring himself to swallow something that had once been a living, breathing entity, quite suddenly slaughtered without its consent, prepared in some manner, and then placed on a plate before him. The mere idea sickened him, and while Trowa accepted that people ate meat and enjoyed its flavor, it still turned his stomach just a little bit when he consider that they were eating something that had once been alive. Which seemed most bizarre itself, the thought that cooked meat turned his stomach and yet he could slay a hundred men in his Gundam and barely bat an eye.

Perhaps it was because he was immune to the taste of death. It was meat he couldn’t handle. Death was easy, he wasn’t going to eat the people he killed. He was just going to kill them. He couldn’t bear the thought of eating that which he had slaughtered. How could he have actually eaten that?!

Not that Trowa was going to mention such a small thing to them. It was pointless, rather silly actually, to even consider mentioning his aversion to meat. Again. He had told them before, when he had first come to live with them, and they had accepted it. It was such a minor transgression really; they had happened before. Each of them had their own food aversions: Quatre quite refused to devour anything made of beef (why Trowa wasn’t exactly certain, perhaps a religious reason?). Heero had a particular dislike of raw fish and certain types of vegetables that are prepared raw. And Duo was quite allergic to some fruits, the worst being his allergy to strawberries. They all had their dislikes, and they all had, at one time or another, been forced (usually accidentally) to eat that which they despised. Besides, it was mostly his own fault. Trowa should have been paying more attention to what he was putting into his mouth.

No, it was not something he was going to mention. Not something worth bringing up. No matter how much he hated the taste of it.

“I had better go.” Quatre sighed, putting his now empty mug on the table and glancing at the clock. “I want to see if I can catch him at his office before his secretary shows up.”

Duo chuckled as Quatre rose and made for the coat rack behind the door. “Have a nice day. Play nicely with the other boys and don’t make too many old geezers run home crying to their mommies.”

“Very cute Duo.” He said with a smiling roll to his eyes. He eyed the table. “Could you guys handle the leftovers and dishes? Please?”

“Sure, sure. Me and Tro can do it, can’t we Tro?” Trowa swallowed the last bit of pancake in his mouth and nodded softly. “See? No worries. Now you go and be a productive member of society.”

“Gee thanks Duo.” He laughed softly while donning a dark winter coat over his equally dark suit. “I’ll see you guys tonight…hopefully.”

Duo waited until he was out the door and the sound of a car engine turning over and then fading away permeated the walls before letting out an annoyed sigh. “I still say the boy hates his job.”

Trowa merely shrugged, standing and gathering some of the empty dishes to deposit them in the sink. Heero assisted in the task.

“Don’t you think so?”

“It’s not our business if he does.” Heero answered, getting more while Trowa filled the sink with warm water.

“Of course it’s our business! Don’t you think he’d be happier doing something he knows?”

“I assumed that he knew politics.” Trowa said quietly.

Duo frowned. “Quatre knows Gundams. Don’t you think he’d be happier being a Preventor with us?”

“Duo, Quatre knows politics. He’d have to know politics very well to have gotten as far as he has so quickly-”

This was true, Trowa mused to himself as he started to wash dishes in the warm water. Quatre, most surprisingly, seemed to be almost a political genius. It had greatly assisted him in his chosen “profession” and helped him rise the political ladder as quickly as he had. Of course, there were still the rumors that it was only his social status that had propelled him as such; he was a prince after all. But most found these accusations to be quite groundless. He was certain that the royal status at least helped him in the act but it was more of Quatre’s own intelligence and cunning that kept him where he was. Quatre had been a Gundam pilot after all, a soldier and master of war. And politics, he had heard, was very much like war. Was it so surprising that he did well?

But still Trowa wondered if Quatre did enjoy the work. He was working among people three times his age, sitting on a council with old men who were advising Miss Relena upon the appropriate moves she should make in the name of peace. He was doing paperwork, joining meetings, conversing with people who had never dreamed of what he had seen. Trowa wondered just how much he missed being able to do something far more hands on than snooping in other politicians’ private lives and providing the Preventors with any information that could be pertinent to their casework.

If he did hate it, Quatre was very good about keeping quiet about it. He was considerate like that. Unlike Trowa, who just preferred to keep mostly everything to himself…

“-so I’m sure that he can manage on his own.”

“But!”

“Enough. If Quatre were unhappy, he probably wouldn’t mention it anyway. Besides,” he added after a moment, taking a dishtowel and starting to dry the cleaned dishes Trowa was stacking quietly. “He knows that there is a place for him somewhere in the Preventors if he wants it. Une made sure that he understood that when he agreed to be her little political spy.” Duo made a face at the words but dropped the conversation all the same, continuing his duties with the leftovers.

Trowa sighed gently to himself, looking up slightly as he washed a glass. He caught his vague reflection in the cabinet to the right of his head and eyed his profile discreetly. A soft frown crossed his face as he noticed that Heero’s head was just above his own. He couldn't remember when that happened. But he shouldn't be surprised. He was, apparently, the only former pilot who had ceased to grow. Quatre and him were the same height now, give or take a quarter inch on his part. Heero was noticeably taller. And Duo noticeably passed all of them, at least an inch and a half taller. He felt uncomfortably young, standing in this stainless steel kitchen in Preventors’ uniforms. Like playing dress-up. It annoyed Trowa.

Heero finished drying and putting the last dishes away just as Trowa started to drain the sink and Duo had closed the refrigerator door on the stacked Tupperware of leftovers. “Now then, let’s get going to work.”

“Okay!” Trowa merely nodded quietly, drying his hands on a dish towel. He tossed it on the black counter top before following the two out of the kitchen to the door.

The winter air cut cruelly through the skin, a chilling wind seeking out any exposed skin and settling into the blood instantly. Trowa fought back a shiver, zipping his coat up about his neck. He eyed the early morning’s dark gray sky, heavy clouds looming overhead. It was going to snow in the next day or so it seemed.

“Tro,” Duo called, leaning back against the passenger door of their rather nondescript car. Trowa tilted his head. “are you going to actually ride with us, or are you going to be stupid and freeze your ass off?” He gave him a blank look before crossing quietly to his motorcycle and placing the helmet over his head and latching it into place. Duo shook his head. “Tch. Fine, be a stupid bastard, but just don’t come crying to me when they have to amputate your ass because you got frost bite on it from riding a motorcycle in middle of December.”

“Duo, just get in the car.” Heero sighed.

“Hey do I get to drive this time?” He asked with a grin. Heero gave him a knowing and most exasperated look as he got into the driver’s seat. “Aw come on! No fair, you always get to drive.”

“That’s because you would get us lost or killed.”

“Would not.”

“Need I remember you of-”

“Hey, hey! You promised you wouldn’t talk about that!”

Heero snorted softly. “I said no such thing. Now get in, or would you rather walk to work?”

“Man, I’m going to get you. You just wait and see Heero Yuy.” he grumbled softly to himself as he climbed into the passenger side and shut the door. Trowa could have sworn he had seen a smirk on his face. He shook his head, preferring not to think about just what Duo might have had in mind when he said that. Checking his helmet one final time, he mounted his bike and started the ignition. The familiar vibrations the engine sent through the metallic body and up through his own both calmed, and aggravated, him. He shifted his hips slightly, grimaced behind the visor, and looked towards the car before him. He arched an elegant eyebrow; they seemed to be discussing something. It must have been important if it was keeping Heero from turning over the engine. Duo was gesturing out the back window; were they discussing him? Whatever for? Whatever the reason, it did not seem to be so important for Heero shook his head lightly and started the engine. He glanced back at Trowa and gestured with his head. Trowa nodded his readiness. The car pulled out with a soft crackling of tire on gravel, Trowa’s bike following just behind.

If the winter air had been cold before, it was sheer ice by the time they had picked up speed to match the posted limit. It howled around him, muffled only slightly by the engine and his helmet. It ripped and tore at his clothes, seeking any small crevice to sift through so it could settle into him and seemingly turn his blood to ice. His gloveless hands trembled upon the throttle. But he didn’t mind it. The ride gave him a sense of peace and serenity. The silence that the engine granted him calmed him greatly. Trowa could withstand a chilled body and trembling hands for this sense of peace. It was the reason why Trowa almost always refused to join Heero and Duo in their daily ride to work.

It was this reason that he followed behind them through heat, rain, or cold. It was only if snow or icy rain were falling that Trowa forwent his bike. And even then, he occasionally risked a headlong spill.

The ride was never very long. The roads weren’t exceptionally crowded in the mornings when the three went off for work, so they usually made it in just over a quarter of an hour. Today was no exception. Trowa weaved through the slight amount of traffic moving to follow the car into the parking garage beneath their office building. He stared up at it for a single moment before disappearing beneath. It was also something rather nondescript, tall, metallic. Very much like the other buildings about it. Still, there was something different about it, though what it was Trowa had yet to put his finger on. There was something about the building that seemed almost foreboding. Strangely intimidating. He shook the notion from his head and disappeared into the artificial dimness of the parking garage.

Heero and Duo were already out and waiting for him when he pulled into the much-too-large-for-his-bike space. He turned the engine off and set the bike on the kickstand, tugging off his helmet and leaving it on the seat. Without the focus Trowa needed to keep the bike up, he could fully feel the effect the cold had on him; he shivered slightly and rubbed his hands.

“That’s what you get for turning down my offer. Again.” Duo smirked. Trowa snorted quietly, rubbing his arms lightly. Heero shook his head a bit and headed for the elevator, Duo and Trowa following close behind. Trowa had never really enjoyed being in an elevator but he was at least thankful that it was there. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to make it up that many flights of stairs without collapsing.

A gentle ding alerted them to their arrival of the proper floor. Trowa winced slightly at the bright fluorescent light that poured in when the doors slid opened. There was much more activity here than down on the street, and the three wandered and weaved through the moving bodies to their respective places. Their desks were rather close to one another, only one or two separating the group from each other. Trowa found his own and sat for a moment in his rather uncomfortable chair. The place seemed little different from when he had first received it just a short time ago. Trowa did not yet feel at home enough to add any “personal” touches. He wasn’t even sure what he would add if he did.

“Good morning Trowa.” Trowa’s head lifted at the new voice. Wufei stared down at him, the smile only noticeable in his black eyes. He smiled up at him vaguely.

“Good morning Wufei.”

Wufei frowned slightly, looking down at his hands on the desk. “Your hands are pale. The skin’s drawn. Did you ride your bike again to work?” Trowa bit back a sigh.

“I prefer it. I don’t mind the travel.”

“You’ll get sick that way.”

He shrugged. “I can manage, thank you for your concern.”

Wufei made a slight face, opening his mouth to retort before being called at by yet another familiar voice. Trowa gave him a benign look and waved him off to see him. Wufei mouthed something that he could only assume to be the word “later” and left to heed to summon. Trowa watched for a moment as he conversed with the former Lightening Count: Zechs Merquise. They were looking down at a small sheaf of paper he was holding, conversing lowly over it. Almost everyone seemed oblivious to the pair, save for the occasional greeting that brought their attention for only a moment. It was only him. It was only Trowa who seemed to notice how close their bodies were to one another. How Wufei’s hip was in contact with his. How Zech’s breath was lightly dusting over the exposed skin of his neck. Trowa seemed to be the only person who still took careful notice of these small actions.

It had been a bit of a shock when Wufei announced that he would not be moving in with them as well, that he would be living with the man that he had come to call his lover. It had been more of a shock when they learned that it was the Lightening Count. Everyone had been their usual selves: Quatre had smiled and wished him all the happiness that he could attain and only asked that they come to visit (which they did at least once a week, usual on the weekend). Duo had smirked and taken several stabs at his pride which he was promptly threatened with disembowelment for. Heero had been the most wary of the notion, but managed to accept it soon enough, with coaxing mostly from Duo (again, Trowa did not want to imagine what he had done to convince him). And Trowa had been quietly accepting. What difference did it make to him if Wufei wanted to live with another man that he loved? What harm did it do? None. Who was he to deny or make a fuss over it? There was no point. Trowa was happy enough for him.

If not a tiny bit jealous. But that part of him was easily quelled with the proper thought pattern.

“Okay, I admit they do look cute together.” Duo muttered with a snicker over his shoulder. He was talking in a low voice as well; if either of the two heard him use the adjective cute in the same sentence as them, there would be hell to pay. “But I can’t see how they get anything done; they’d spend too much time fighting over who’d be on top".

Trowa made a face. “Duo…”

“Maxwell!” The stern voice cutting through the din was unmistakable. Nearly everyone winced. Trowa blinked. “Your report on the Desoto case?”

“Coming ma’am.” Duo called. He leaned closer. “The woman is a frigging slave driver.”

“You forgot to give the report yesterday. She’s within her rights to yell.”

He frowned. “No fair, you always take her side.”

“She is usually right.”

“Nah. You only take her side ‘cause she’s nice to you.” He chuckled. Patting his back far more roughly than Trowa would have preferred, he left him to follow Lady Une, their boss, their “commander,” to her office.

He was often amazed by the quickness that the woman could change her attitude. Her work with Treize Khushrenada and his military had given her a stern disposition. She was woman lethal when angry, as well as rather frightening. And it seemed she did not find a morning complete if she didn’t yell at someone for some inane thing that they had done or caused. She was a strict disciplinarian; in this building, her word was law and people did well to remember that. She had little patience for people who broke the law, were lax in their duties, anything along those lines. Lady Une was, as Duo had put it, a slave driver. A very intelligent and knowledgeable woman of the law, military, and militaristic operations, but a slave driver nonetheless. She had no compassion when it came to people’s job.

Except in Trowa’s case. For some reason unbeknownst to him, she had a slightly softer disposition when addressing him. True, this had never prevented her from reaming him thoroughly when he had performed mistakes in his job, but on the whole, she seemed gentler with Trowa. Which bothered him. He appreciated her kinds words, yes, but she seemed to treat him differently. Trowa did not wish to be different.

Shaking his head, Trowa sighed gently and looked down at the small stack of papers on his desk. Now was not the time to be thinking of this. There was work to be done.

He wasn’t exactly sure what to call his job; he certainly didn’t go out on assignments or operations like the other operatives. He didn’t help train new operatives, or set up operations for the future. Trowa spent most of his day behind the desk, filling out miscellaneous paperwork and forums, occasionally running some strange errand for someone for some reason. He felt like a secretary.  _No I’m beneath a secretary. Secretaries actually converse with other living people. I’m just the paper pusher._  Did this happen to all the new operatives? Trowa didn’t have the patience to ask, or the will to know the answer.

No one could say that Trowa wasn’t at least good at his “job.” For some reason unknown to him, he seemed to have a knack for doing miscellaneous and often seemingly meaningless paperwork. He seemed to have a head for this sort of detailing, rarely having to look up any of the facts that he had memorized before and needed again.

It was not a fact he was overly proud off.

The morning was spent as usual, with him sitting behind the desk doing paperwork and tuning out just about everything else about him. He only managed to understand tidbits of the conversations around him. Conversations on recent operations, comments of news or politics, jokes. Noise. He kept it at bay in the very back of his mind to better perform the job that he had been given. Trowa’s body seemed to have adopted its own will; he could have let his mind wander aimlessly and his hands still would have managed to go through the repetitive motions of mindless paper filling. He hadn’t even realized that he had been working until Duo rapped him over the head with a file and reminded him that he needed to eat some lunch. Trowa shook his head for a moment and looked at his desk.

He was already over half way down the paperwork that had been left for him. No wonder he suddenly had a headache and his eyes felt a little sore.

Stretching lightly, Trowa rose from his uncomfortable chair, grimacing only a little at the slight ache in his back, and left his desk. He didn’t return for almost ten minutes, a bag in his hand from the small lunch he had bought himself outside the building. Trowa was just about to bite into his sandwich, sitting back at his desk, when Heero pulled up a chair and sat at the end of the desk.

“Why don’t you come eat with us?” he asked. Trowa sat his sandwich back down.

“I don’t like anything they serve here.” Trowa answered without looking at him. 

Heero frowned slightly. “I didn’t ask that. I asked why you didn’t want to eat with us. Why you never eat lunch with us? You know you’re invited. We’d like you to eat with us.”

“Wouldn’t it be considered rude for me to bring food there instead of eating what they prepare?”

“I highly doubt they have any reason to care, since its their own damn fault for not having some vegetarian options. Besides, I don’t think anyone would care all that much since you wouldn’t be the only person who does it.” Trowa merely shrugged at his words. “Do you actually enjoy being up here by yourself?”

“It’s quiet. I don’t mind it.” Trowa answered with a shrug, picking his sandwich back up and biting into it to prove a point. Heero sighed softly and shook his head lightly, but he dropped the subject all the same. It was not the first time he had asked Trowa why he preferred to be alone, and Trowa knew it was not the last. But he had his reasons and, for the most part, Heero and the others respected his desire for privacy.

He was half way through his peanut butter and cream cheese sandwich, wondering absently why Heero was still sitting beside his desk, when he spoke again. “Why didn’t you say anything at breakfast?”

Trowa sipped his iced tea, trying to clear his throat enough of the sticky food to answer. “I had nothing to add to the conversation, so I decided just to listen.”

“I meant, why didn’t you mention that there was bacon in the salad?” He asked. Trowa choked on his tea; how had he noticed?

“It was nothing to mention.” Trowa managed, voice slightly scratchy from his brief choking. Nothing a series of clearing coughs couldn’t fix.

Heero frowned slightly. “But you’re a strict vegetarian.”

“Yes well, it’s not as though he meant it. It was an accident. Nothing to mention.”

“I think Quatre would have preferred you to mention it. You know, he wants to make sure that you’re happy.”

“I’m fine.”

Heero watched some of the other operatives come from the elevator. “Sometimes he wonders. Sometimes, I do as well.” Trowa swallowed. “Enjoy your sandwich Trowa. Try to eat with us tomorrow.”

“I’ll try.” he muttered quietly, watching Heero rise from the chair and replace it before meeting Duo who had just come out of the elevator. Trowa could hear him demanding why he hadn’t come down for lunch. Trowa turned from the conversation, stared down at his sandwich. Suddenly he wasn’t very hungry.

The remainder of the day went on without so much as a whisper of trouble or misdoing. Trowa spent it the way he had spent the morning, buried in paperwork that he barely understood yet could fill out with little difficult. Yet his “heart” was not in it. More so, his mind was not with him; it wandered while he worked, latching onto to things that it shouldn’t have. Once more, Trowa didn’t realize just how long he was working until Duo tapped him lightly on the shoulder to draw him from his trance like state. He looked up at the small group about his desk, eyebrow arched questioningly as to why Wufei and Zechs were among them.

“Quatre called a little while ago. He got off a little early, for once, and wants to go out for dinner tonight. Come on, let’s go before we’re late.”

Trowa looked back down at the papers on his desk. “No. No I should finish this up.” He said quietly. Duo let out a whine.

“Aw come on, Quatre hardly ever gets out early, hell or even on time. He wants everyone to have dinner together for once, you have to come.”

He shook his head. “I really shouldn’t leave this.”

“Can’t you do it tomorrow?”

“Oh yes, that’s what we need. Another procrastinator.” Wufei snorted.

“I would rather not have Une bite my head off, thank you.” Trowa said, which got chuckle from Zechs and a smirk from Heero.

Duo made a face. “But Quatre said he wanted everyone to come. It’s not everyone if you don’t come.”

Trowa bit back a sigh. “I know that but I should finish this. I’m sure Quatre will understand. Next time, I promise.”

“Tro! Come on! You-”

“Of course.” Heero cut across, causing Duo to throw him a venomous look that he easily ignored. “I’m sure Quatre will understand that the job comes first. He’ll be disappointed, but I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“I’ll make it up to him. Tell him that I’m sorry and I promise to come next time.”

“We will. Are you sure that you can’t come?”

“I should really finish these.”

“Alright. Don’t stay too late, and get something to eat later, alright?”

“I will, don’t worry.”

“Well then. Good night Trowa.”

“Good night. Have fun.”

He heard the others mutter their own good nights and goodbyes, which he replied too equally quiet whilst turning most of his attention back to the papers still blank on his desk. He managed to tune out most of their conversation as they made their way to the elevator, Heero with a tight grip on Duo’s arm to keep him from running back and dragging Trowa with them. His focus wavered as he lost himself in the wordless noise of their conversation that drifted further and further away. Trowa didn’t even need to guess what they were discussing; he was being entirely rude, to refuse this invitation of account of “work.” He knew that Quatre was going to be beyond disappointed, although he would put on a brave face and most likely sigh and think out loud that he was working too hard. Trowa sighed as his pen ambled across the lines. He knew that he was being rude. That he was setting himself up perfectly to be discussed behind his back, to have them wonder what was the matter with him, why he was shutting himself from them, if it was something they had done, and what they could possibly do to fix it.

A soft snort escaped him. As if they could ever hope to “fix” his problems.

It was quite dark by the time Trowa deemed himself “finished” for the day. Most of the members of the “day shift” that he had come to remember had gone home; the sparse who remained didn’t seem to notice him. The few members of the night shift that would be on the floor were already at their desks. Trowa wondered just how long it had taken him to finish. He decided to was better if he didn’t know.

Rising quietly, he pulled his jacket of the back of the chair and, draping it over his shoulder, walked down the aisle to the elevator. The light in Une’s office was still on; he could see it through the crack at the bottom of the door. He knew that she too stayed late more often than not. It would be good manners to at least bid her a good night.

He would do that tomorrow.

Trowa leaned back into the cool interior of the elevator, watching the doors slid close absently after he had pressed the button for the floor he desired. Oddly enough, the elevator didn’t descend; it rose. Trowa had no intention of going home just yet. There was one more thing that he wanted to do before he went out into the cold night air.

A quiet ding alerted him again to the proper destination and Trowa slid out of the elevator before the doors had even fully opened. The area around him was dark, but even in the shadows he could tell it was an expansive place. Groping blindly along the nearest wall, he brushed against the light panel. The first switch caused the overhead lights to flicker and glow brightly, feeling the silent room with the sound of running electricity. Trowa took only a moment to look around the training area of this place before finding the spot he wished to use. Tossing his coat on a near by chair, Trowa took a moment to breathe a short distance from the edge of the mat, eyes closed as he loosened the tightened muscles of his body. He could feel cool and clean air running through his limbs, energizing him.

Green eyes shot opened and he sprinted towards the mat, body reacting upon the natural instinct to cross over it without setting a limb down for longer than a second. He didn’t blink again until he was on the other side, arms outstretched and staring up at the ceiling with a single bead of sweat tracing his temple. The adrenaline felt good. Like ecstasy.

He had almost forgotten how good it felt to let his body forgot the meaninglessness of his new position and fall back into what he had been trained to know. It had been a bit since Trowa had last taken advantage of this place in the privacy of late evening. But it didn’t seem as though time had passed. His body remember the things he had thought he had forgotten. Back flips, cartwheels, round the backs, hand springs and his own “signature” move. His body flowed from one move to the next like water; he could feel himself twisting into harder and harder combinations. His heart was racing with his body.

Trowa didn’t even realize that he couldn’t breathe until his hand refused to support the entirety of his weight for a mere second.

The fall crushed what little air he held in his lungs with unimaginable force. Trowa’s body crumpled to the floor, heaving and shuddering as the breathlessness settled into him far too quickly. Vision lined with black shadows, he tried to pull himself to his knees, only to feel a wave of nausea crash over him that sent him back to the floor. His heart was pounding against his ribs; he could feel the pressure cracking them. His chest burned; it was being crushed. His lungs were on fire; they were going to burn up!

_No they are not! You’re not coming apart! Y-You’re just passing out!_  He was going to anyway, if it didn’t come off. Soon. But he certainly couldn’t do it here, but he wasn’t sure if he could make it? Would he stay conscious long enough?

He’d have to try.

Trowa was, once again, quite thankful that no one else was on this floor, or that there were no cameras to watch him as he crawled slowly across the mat, trying to regulate any breath that he could get to manage the task. He didn’t dare try to stand. Standing required an upward movement, and led to a far greater gravitational pressure on his body than crawling did. If he tried to stand in this state, he’d fall and probably never get back up again. He crawled, slowly, feeling his vision and breath slip further and further with each passing inch. He had no way of knowing how far he had gone or how far he had left to go. All Trowa truly knew was that his mind was slipping, the floor beneath him swirling with dark and unnatural shadows. His entire body quivered with the movement he was forcing it to undertake with oxygen he didn’t possess. The senses were pulling away, rapidly. If he didn’t reach it soon, Trowa was certain that he would collapse, and probably suffocate.

He was fairly certain that he was in no hurry to die, at least not in such a fashion.

The sudden contact of cold tile sent a shock through his body that crumpled him to the floor of the showers. He gasped weakly in the new dimness, struggling to undo the buttons of his shirt. Trowa buried his face into the tiled floor in hopes that the cold would ground his senses at least a little. Still his fingers fumbled and slid uselessly across the small and slick buttons. A feeble growl escaped him and he focused as much as he could on pulling it off. A black veil was falling over him. The cloth peeled away from his torso and fell worthless to the floor. Trowa’s fingers trembled more, working the clasps that had been beneath it with much difficulty. He choked, body convulsing. His entire field of vision went black; his body was going numb. His senses were dying.

The cold floor startled a weak gasp out him as his bare chest met it. His fingers tightened about the cloth that had been constricting him for a moment as he heaved heavily into the tile. Blood rushed through his veins. Trowa could hear it pounding in his head. His heart hammered in his chest, which rose and fell rapidly as he panted loudly. The air tasted of something metallic and stale, but it was still air. He was breathing again. Curling up on his side, he shivered lightly as the sweat on his body cooled and clung to his skin. That had been too close…far too close. Trowa had nearly suffocated to death.

Damn it all. He was out of shape!

Or at least out of practice. His body, in its new state of inactiveness, had forgotten the training that he had forced it to remember not so long ago. There was no need for him to practice anymore the way he had during the time of the wars. There was no need to train, no need to regulate his breathing, slow his heart rate and breath down to the point of ceasing now that there were no battles to be had. It was a pointless endeavor seeing as he was no longer trying to operate a Gundam or infiltrate an enemy base with this medieval torture device encasing his chest.

Trowa lifted his head lightly at the thought. The light from the room caused dim shadows to fall over the item in question. Slowly, he lifted his body to his knees. His breathing was almost normal again. In silence he pulled the cloth to him and studied it with a critical eye. It didn’t seem to be damaged during his haste to get it off. He shifted his position slightly to let the light hit it for a better examination. He pulled on it experimentally; it hardly stretched an inch. Was it any wonder that he had nearly died of suffocation?

Doing acrobatics with a corset tightened about his chest. He doubted even the Perfect Soldier could pull that one off.

He stopped, eyes shifting to the right. He had seen it. A vague form shifting along the wall in the dimness. It froze along with him while he studied it with narrowed eyes. He knew what it was, he knew what it would show, he knew that he shouldn’t move to it and yet he felt compelled to heed its strange call. Corset abandoned on the floor beside his sweat drenched shirt, Trowa rose to shaky legs. He turned ever so slowly on the balls of his feet and faced the form in the distance. His steps were soft as he crossed to meet it. His body passed through the small column of light let it by the opened door.

His reflection passed in and out of shadow with him.

Trowa stood before his reflection. Shaky fingers touched the lifeless glass surface timidly. He spent a moment searching his own angular, and rather androgynous, face, head tilting lightly on his neck. The emerald eye that looked back at him sparkled with the faint light of the distant room; there was a strange depth to it that he still did not fathom. His hand slid down the front of the glass slowly; he watched his own throat move as he swallowed, hand tracing the outermost contour of his body. The emerald eye slid closed when his other hand slid across his stomach, rising slowly with just the tips of his fingers touching his skin. His breath hitched as his hand encountered the soft skin upon his chest. The hand fell lifeless against his side while Trowa shuddered. He pressed his forehead into the glass, fingers clenching against the glass. He counted the flecks of green in his eyes; the lines wavered slowly.

Swallowing again, Trowa leaned most of his weight into the glass, letting both his hands fall to his sides. He tried to lose himself into the sudden and wavering depth of his eyes to ignore the actions his hands had undertook. It was not until the sound of the falling cloth invaded his senses that he opened his eyes again. Both hands against the glass, Trowa pushed himself back from the glass, stepping back ever so slightly. His ankle caught in the cloth crumpled at his feet. He took another step to catch himself, and then another. And another. And another, until he could see the entire of his own body in a single glance. His breath hitched as Trowa’s eyes roamed over the contours of the body that he detested. A solitary word swirled in the depths of his brain and he trembled at it.

A sudden chill went up his spine as something, a ghost from the past that he preferred to bury, settled over him. It’s will guided his own, coaxing his hands to move slowly along his vaguely rounded hips. It led one hand up his abdomen and further until it came to rest on the soft flesh of small breasts that hardened slightly at its chilled tough. He closed his eyes as this foreign will guided his other down his pelvis, bit his lower lip as it passed gently over his flaccid penis to come to rest between his legs. A strange sort of noise escaped him as he felt a heat and wetness that no boy was naturally supposed to feel upon himself. The hands dropped lifeless to his sides. The chill settled further into his skin, made his body heavy. His head dropped gently.

And through what seem to be the sudden whispers of the past, he heard that word, that one word he had come to describe the entirety of his existence. When he lifted his head and gazed back into his own reflection, Trowa saw his lips move to form it.

The voice was nothing like his own.

“Freak.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trowa goes to visit his sister

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It should probably said that I do not own Trowa Barton or any other characters from Gundam Wing, although I do consider Chains-canon Trowa a unique bi-product of my really disturbed imagination.

The gentle patter of rain upon the uncovered window startled him from his slight daydream. Trowa lifted his head and gazed towards the window, watching the water bead down it in slow rivulets. He walked towards it and laid his hands on the sill to steady himself as he looked up at the gray clouded sky. A gentle frown crossed his face. He had not been expecting rain; rain would make it more difficult. Driving in the rain was dangerous, and the others would worry. They might even offer to take him themselves.

Trowa wanted his solitude.

He turned back to the bed where the duffle bad that Heero had lent him was sitting half full of clothing and other daily necessities. A letter that seemed to have been unfolded, read, and refolded several times sat beside him. He picked it up once again, sitting down where it had been. Trowa found himself reading the graceful, if not a little hurried, writing once again. His sister need to learn how to slow her hand down.

Still, he felt a wisp of a smile starting to form as he read it again. He could almost hear her excited voice.

 **Dear Trowa,**   **I certainly hope that this got to the right address. I’m not sure as to how reliable your friend is. I wouldn‘t be surprised if he gave me the wrong address on purpose. He didn’t seem very keen to letting me know what country you‘re living in now, let alone your new address. Is he paranoid? Or does he just not like the idea of your one and only big sister being able to contact you whenever she feels like it?-**

Trowa snorted softly, imagining her grinning to herself as she wrote that. It was true that Heero had taken his dear sweet time to agree and actual give her their new address. He was still a very cautious individual. Trowa thought sometimes, in certain aspects of life, he was overly so.  _Borderline paranoid, yup. Got it right in one._

**How have things been with you? I know that you managed to get a different job now that things have settled down and your old position is unnecessary. How is it working out? Are you enjoying it? What sort of work do you do there?-**

Did he really have the heart to tell her that he had been demoted from an expertly trained killer to a lowly paper pusher?  _She’ll either laugh or make a face._

**How are your roommates? You live with three of them, right? I’ve meet them before, haven’t I? Quatre is the blonde, quiet one. Duo is the one that I need to keep the sugar away from and has the braid. Has he cut that thing yet? He looks so silly with it dangling down his back!-**

_No he hasn’t and he never will; we tried._

**And Heero is the Japanese guy who apparently doesn’t like me since he took over four months to give me your address. Your fourth friend doesn’t live with you, right? But I think you told me before that you work together, right?**

**Well anyway, things are going quite fine over here. Everyone’s told me to write that they all say hello and that things have been too noisy ever since you left. Thomas broke his leg, again, trying to do the three back flips in a row on the trapeze. He keeps insisting that he doesn’t need the net as high as is regulation. He’s such an ass; maybe when he’s broken his neck he’ll wise up and starting listening to reason.-**

Trowa doubted that.

**Oh! And Aimee left. She and her boyfriend, she found one just after you left. I told you about him on the phone that one time, remember? The jazz musician? Well they got engaged about three months ago and of course started to live together. I was so certain she would stay with the group too, at least until the wedding, but I can see why she left. She certainly can’t do trick riding being a month and a half pregnant.-**

He shook his head to himself. Aimee had always struck him as being a little fast moving. A rather nice young woman, very vibrant but fast. He wasn’t so surprised that she had gotten pregnant after being engaged for only a month and a half. Though Trowa didn’t suppose it was such a bad thing. It was her life after all, and she had always seemed to be very good with children.

**Everyone’s wished her luck and gave her a nice sendoff. Me and most of the other girls threw her a small baby shower; she started crying, she was so surprised. It was actually really cute! We’re all pretty sad that she left though. She was the best trick rider we ever had. But she did promise to come by and see the show whenever she gets the chance and when the baby’s born, she swore she would bring her (she’s praying for a little girl) to see my knife throwing act. But it will seem even more quiet around without her shrill voice barking at Edmund for leaving his dumbbell in the center ring again.**

**Well speaking of the circus, did you know? We’re coming to the city just next to yours.-**

Trowa had seen something about it in the paper, although he only remembered having read about it before receiving her letter because Duo had thrust the article in his face while they were at work and unintentionally spilled his hot tea on his lap in the process.

**Now I know that you must be busy, what with living with your new roommates, and having a new job-**

Could a person be bored and busy at their job at the same time?

**but I was hoping that, if you can get the time off, that you could come see me for a few days. I’m certain everyone would like to see you again, and we can catch up with one another. It feels like it’s been forever since I last got to see that odd hair of yours. I bet you haven’t changed the style at all.**

_Nope._

**I’d really like it if you could come by to see me, and the show of course. We’re going to be in the area for a few months and it’s not very far from where you’re living. Only about an hour or two from what I managed to gather from the map I borrowed. It would mean so much if you could come by for just a couple days so we could catch up with each other.**   **Of course I’ll understand if time is scarce. The job comes first, after all.-**

Oh yes, he certainly understood that.

**But if you can, drop me a line at the address enclosed and tell me when I can expect you. And if you can’t, well then drop me a line and just gossip with me for a page or two.**

**I love you Trowa. I’m looking forward to seeing you, or hearing whose dating whom among your little friends. You better write me back.**

**Love from your big sister,**   **Catherine**

He sighed to himself, folding the letter up once again. Setting it on the top of the duffle bag, Trowa laid himself back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Sparse shadows slid across it from the ceiling lamp he had flicked on low earlier. It was because of this letter that Trowa was picking through the sparse items that he owned and deciding just what he needed for a week away from the house. It was actually a bit more a challenge than he had previously thought it would be. He hardly went anywhere by himself for a “vacation” as it were so he was not so very knowledgeable in the area.

It was there that the soldier instinct kicked it: take what’s light, and essential for survival. And then add the toiletries.

Trowa closed his eyes, muttering softly under his breath as he marked imaginary checks in the air to trace his steps to anything that he could have possibly missed that would be essential for a short trip. When his mind came up with nothing, he sat back up and set about to refolding the clothes he had wrinkled in his gatherings. From outside the room Trowa could hear quiet conversations, overlapped slightly by the sound of the television turned to something. The news perhaps? It didn’t really matter, he wouldn’t be there much longer to hear it. He set the folded items carefully in the borrowed bag, piling the rest of his essentials on top of them and zipping it up. Trowa stepped back from it for a moment, thinking one more time. He shouldered it experimentally. It seemed very light to him, perhaps too much so.

He shrugged. He didn’t need very much anyway. Light was fine.

With one last look out his uncovered window at the gradually heaving rain, Trowa flicked the ceiling light off and slipped out of the room. A comfortable warmth seeped through the house; it sifted through his soft sweater and faded jeans gently to settle into his skin. He shifted the bag on his shoulder for a moment and walked towards the noise. Setting the bag on the floor behind the couch in the living room, he leaned over the back of the black leather couch that Quatre had insisted on getting. While it did match splendidly with the cool colors of the living room and the dark woods that made up the other furniture, Trowa had never ever seen him before as being someone who adored the touch of leather. He watched the program that Quatre was currently engrossed in with mild interest.

“One of the few weekends you have off and you choose to watch television?” He asked quietly. Quatre jumped slightly, hands tightening around the cup of coffee Trowa hadn’t notice he was holding. At least he hadn’t spilt any. He was certain Quatre would have a stroke if someone spilled coffee on the leather couch. It was the only thing he could even imagine the blonde having a fit over.

“Trowa! Oh, you scared me.” He chuckled, breathing a little quickly.

“I noticed. I didn’t mean to.” 

He smiled. “Oh, it’s alright. You’re just so quiet, it’s hard to know when you’re sneaking up on someone.” Trowa shrugged. He had been trained for that. “And I’m only watching this until Duo and Heero stop arguing.”

“They’re arguing?”

“Well they were, but they took it to a different room.”

Trowa nodded absently. He had only barely noticed that the sound of voices had diminished. “What were they arguing over this time?”

“I’m not really sure actually.” Quatre said, thinking for a moment. “I’m fairly certain Duo mentioned something about movies.” Movies? That seemed like an odd thing for the two to argue over, at least to Trowa. Quatre, setting the coffee down on the glass coffee table, leaned over the back of the couch himself and smiled. He eyed the duffle bag Trowa had left on the floor. “Are you leaving now?”

He looked back to it. “In a few minutes, yes.”

Quatre made a slight face. “It’s started raining. Are you sure it’s a good idea to take your bike in the rain? It’ll ice over pretty quickly in this cold.”

“I’ll be alright.”

“Yes but well, we could give you a ride. It’s not that far away.” He said with a smile. Trowa shook his head.

“No, no it’s fine. Today’s your day off. You don’t get them often and I don’t want you to spend it taking me to my sister’s.”

“But--”

“I’ll be just fine, Quatre. Like you said, it’s not very far away.” Trowa insisted. Quatre sighed softly but smiled at the same.

“All right, if you’re sure. Just be careful okay? And tell Catherine that I say hello.”

He shoulder his bag again. “I will.” He walked quietly towards the door, listening as Quatre rose from the couch and followed him. He should have known that Quatre would at least see him off. He was pulling his jacket on when Quatre had managed to call Heero and Duo’s names loud enough to get their attention and draw them from their argument behind close doors to the back door. He zipped it up and leaned down to pick up his bag again, catching the smirk on Duo’s face. Trowa could only imagine just what he was thinking.

“See? I told you’d he’d risk himself being electrocuted.” Duo laughed with a smile. Trowa sighed softly. He should have expected that

“I have a better chance of winning the lottery than being struck by lightening, Duo.” he answered, shouldering his bag.

“Not when you’re riding a motorcycle in the rain you’re not. Metal conducts electricity, hun.”

“There’s no lightening Duo.” Heero told him. “And there won’t be all day. Unless a phone line snaps on the highway and hits him, he’ll be fine.”

“How come you always take his side?” he asked with a pout. Heero ignored it.

“Have a good trip Trowa.”

“I will.”

“Tell everyone we say hello.” Quatre smiled.

“I will.”

“I can’t believe Une gave you a week off.” snorted Duo. Quatre chuckled softly and Heero sighed.

“Trowa does his job well and doesn’t usually ask for anything. Is it that surprising that Une decided to show her appreciation for his hard work by granting him a simple request, to see his sister for a short bit?”

“She’d never give me time off.”

“That’s because you piss her off almost daily.”

“I do not.”

“You annoy her the most out of all the people in our department.”

Duo snorted. A sly smile was playing across his face. “Do not. And that’s not the reason that she gave him the time off anyway. It’s favoritism, man. She likes him.”

“It is not favoritism.” Quatre bit back. Trowa sighed, staring at the ceiling shortly.

“Is so. She never yells at him.”

“Yes she has, just not usually because he gives her no reason to.”

“No, she just likes him too much to yell at him.”

“Duo. In the last week, tell me one thing Trowa did wrong that needed reprimanding.”

His mouth opened soundlessly, closing just as quickly as he tried to recall a moment from the last week. Trowa closed his eyes. “He…no….Wait he…no that wasn’t him…Oh didn’t he!…no…" Trowa groaned and rubbed his eyes with the pads of his fingers, a small headache forming. “Well shit!”

“My point exactly.”

“But-”

“As much as I’m enjoying listening to you all speak of me in the third person, I should get going. Catherine’s expecting me before dark.” Trowa said just loud enough to draw their attention to his continued presence. Quatre and Duo’s faces flushed an equally bright red. Heero’s face showed very little sign of embarrassment, although his eyes did manage a slight turn downwards to the floor. “I will see you in a week.”

“Have a nice visit with Catherine.”

“Don’t get struck by lightening!” Duo called as Trowa opened the door. The smell of cold rain invaded his senses.

“Yes.”

“If we can, we might try to come see the show, is that okay?”

“If you’d like, but if you’re busy it’s nothing to worry over.”

Quatre smiled and waved at him as he moved to his bike and attached the bag to the back it. The rain slid across his face and down the back of his neck, chilling him. He was most thankful for the helmet’s protection when he put it on.

“Be careful! Have fun!” Quatre called out, the words only slightly muffled. Trowa merely nodded, mounting his bike and sending a small spray of gravel out from under it as he sped from the driveway. He didn’t notice the slightly worried look that crossed Quatre’s face as he watched him disappear into the rain, or the frown and the head shake that Heero and Duo both shared. Still, they disappeared back into the warmth of the house and let him risk his neck on the slicked roads.

Freezing rain or not, Trowa had to admit there was a certain pleasure in driving through the rain. The silence seemed to be different now. More absolute than when it was just his engine that drowned everything out. The rain isolated him, wrapped him in a comforting and numbing shield. It sheltered him from everything and everyone; no one other than him would enjoy the icy rain’s freezing touch. It kept Trowa completely alone.

To hell with the very possible chance of contracting pneumonia.

An hour later, while Trowa still appreciated the rain’s sacred touch, he was a little less pleased with the chill that it sent through his entire body. Rain had continual dripped down the back of his neck beneath his coat, seeped into every fiber of his clothes. His body felt heavy as he dismounted his soaked bike, grimacing as the cold and stiff fabric tried to drag him entirely to the ground. Gripping the handle bars, he pushed the bike along for a few moments. He stopped for a moment, looking up through the heavier rain at a sight that he hadn’t seen for quite some time. The circus tent brought a slight smile to his face, rain soaked though it was.

No one seemed to be about. There were a few lights on in the mobile places that they had come to call their homes. It seemed that Trowa was the only one willing to freeze himself in the winter rain. There was no one to notice as he pushed his bike beneath the awning type covering that come from the one place he almost fully recognized. It was not the same it had been when he had been here many months before but he knew that it was the proper one. Trowa could simply feel her presence.

He could certainly hear it when he knocked on the door.

The door flew opened with a squeal that was quickly accompanied by the tightest hug that Trowa had ever felt in his entire life, and he lived with Duo Maxwell. Catherine’s body squeezed his as though she were trying to merge with his skin; he fought to breathe. “Trowa! Oh Trowa it‘s been so long!”

“Catherine. Catherine, I can’t breathe.” He gasped softly. She made a soft sound and pulled away. Trowa patted his chest lightly as he panted, checking to be sure that all his ribs were still intact. “I missed you too.”

She smiled brightly at his words. “I missed you so much! It feels like it’s been forever.” She set her hands on his face and lifted his head. “You look tired, your cheeks are a bit shallow and oh my god, ew you’re absolutely soaked.” She said, staring at her water drenched hands. She dried them on her pant legs. “You couldn’t have been waiting out here that long.” Catherine’s eyes narrowed sourly. Trowa fought back a swallow. “Trowa Barton, you did get a ride here, didn‘t you?”

“Catherine.”

“Didn’t you, Trowa?” Trowa sighed, heavily, and gestured half heartedly to his bike sitting quietly under the awning. Catherine’s face contorted in annoyance. “You drove that thing in this weather? You’re lucky you weren’t struck by lightening!”

“There’s no lightening.”

“Fine, you’re lucky you didn’t fall and break your neck. Get inside now and change out of those wet clothes before you get sick.”

He bit back another sigh while he allowed her to tug his yielding body into the warm interior. “Yes Catherine.”

Trowa bit back several more sighs, each more difficult than the last, as Catherine, after she had shut the door and took his bag from him and set it on the floor, circled him like a vulture and fussed over him. He closed his eyes and took it in good grace as well as he could manage. Although Trowa despised being treated like this, like a very small child incapable of caring for himself in anyway, there was a certain warmth to her mothering that made it almost entirely possible for him to put up with her incessant coddling. Almost.

“Catherine, I am fine. Really.” Trowa sighed quietly, pushing lightly on her shoulders. She frowned more; he did his best to smile at her. “Really. It’s just a little rain.”

“In December.” She scolded, tossing the bag at him again. “Change out of those wet clothes right now.

Trowa shook his head. “You sound almost exactly like Duo, it’s frightening.” he muttered. A smile couldn’t be suppressed as he heard her giggle while disappearing into the bathroom to change. He had almost forgotten how nice Catherine’s laugh was. Almost contagious. He soon found himself, almost ten minutes later after having changed out of his wet clothes into a warm and relatively loose turtleneck with a baggy pair of jeans, seated at the small table with a warm cup of jasmine tea nestled between his hands. Catherine had just finished pouring herself something and sat across from him. She made a slight face as he sipped its contents.

“I don’t know how you can drink that stuff.” she sighed, taking a sip of the coffee she had poured for herself. Trowa looked at her over the lip of his mug.

“I don’t know how you can drink that liquid chalk.”

“It isn’t liquid chalk.”

“It certainly tastes like chalk."

“And how would you know? Eaten chalk recently?” Trowa, snorting quietly at the comment, took a large sip just to spite her. It didn’t seem to work since she merely smiled sweetly at him. “I’ve missed being able to argue over which tastes better with you.”

“That’s an odd thing to miss.”

“Well it’s one of the many things that I’ve missed being able to do with you ever since you left.” Catherine smiled. Trowa shrugged a bit. “What, you didn’t miss me?”

“Of course I missed you Catherine. I told you so earlier.”

“Then don’t you miss being able to sit like this too?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t act like it…”

Trowa set the mug down and looked at her. She must have noticed the softness, and the slight hurt, in his eyes for she fell very quietly. “Catherine.” he started. Trowa paused, looking down for a moment into his tea. Still, _still,_ he found it very difficult to say things, to talk with an air of acceptable normalcy. Still Trowa found that his tongue could not match with what his mind wanted to convey. His tongue could not obey his mind. It was far too inept in the art of conversation.

Catherine sat her warm hand on his own, smiling gently. “I’m sorry Trowa. I forget sometimes. But I know that you don’t need words to convey everything. I know that you missed me too.” He sighed softly at her words.  _Still, I sometimes wish that I could say what everyone wants to hear._  “Come on now, cheer up. Gossip with me, tell me what’s going on with your roommates.”

Trowa shrugged, sipping his tea again. Catherine frowned.

“A shrug is not an answer Trowa.”

“Well I’m not sure what you want to know…”

“Well let’s start with something basic: is anyone injured?”

“No.”

“Is anyone engaged?”

“No.”

“Is anyone pregnant?”

He choked into his tea. “They’re all males, Catherine.”

“Just checking to see if you’re actually paying attention to what I’m asking.” She answered with a smirk. Trowa snorted softly and sipped his tea. “So, is anyone dating?”

“I suppose you could say that, yes.”

“Oh really?? Well come on, tell me the details.”

“What details?”

“Like whose dating who Trowa. Where they go, if they like each other, how long they’ve been seeing each other. You know, details.”

Setting his tea down, he thought about it for a moment. “Well Wufei is still living with his lover, Zechs. And they seem to be getting along fine.”

“Wufei. He’s the Chinese one, yes? Black ponytail, bit of a sourpuss.” asked Catherine. He could just imagine the look Wufei would have if he had every heard some call him a “sourpuss,” befitting term as it was.

“That’s him. He and Zechs have been living together for quite some time now.”

“Zechs. I don’t think I’ve met him.”

“You haven’t yet.”

“And they’re doing well? No fights to speak of?”

“Not that I’ve noticed or been told about, no. They seem quite content with each other whenever I see them.”

Catherine smiled as she lifted her mug to take a sip of coffee. “Well that’s great. It’s always nice when people find someone they can spend their lives with.” Trowa simply nodded. “So anyone else?”

“Heero and Duo are together.” He mentioned as he took a sip of his own. Catherine sprayed coffee on the table top. Trowa blinked over his mug.

“No way!”

“Is it so surprising?” He asked, watching her get a towel to clean the mess she had made.

“No, no of course not. Well, yes it is. I just never really imagined Heero whose so serious and icy falling for someone like Duo. He’s so, so--”

“Energetic?”

“I was going to say insane but yours sounds nicer.” She tossed the soiled towel into the sink. “He’s just so hyperactive and bouncy and Heero is always so serious and calculating.”

He shrugged again. “Well they seem to get along alright.”

“Alright?”

“They fight on occasion, but it’s only little things and they don’t seem to mean it really. It’s more like…”

“Play fighting?”

“I suppose.” She ran fingers through her hair. “Mmm well they say opposites attract. And if they really do like each other, then I guess they were made for each other.” Catherine sat herself back down across from him.

“They seem happy enough.”

“It must make for interesting moments though.” she chuckled. Trowa looked at her over the mug.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well they must have a very interesting relationship, being such polar opposites. It must make for some interesting moments around the house.”

“I really wouldn’t know.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked, blinking lightly. “You all live together.”

“They are rather discreet about their relationship.” he replied.

Catherine laughed. “But you live together!”

“That doesn’t mean that they cannot be discreet about what they do and do not do in private company.” He answered. It was actually something that Trowa was secretly thankful for, this discretion of theirs. While it was perfectly within their rights to show affection to one another in public, or even just around the house, Trowa appreciated the fact that they kept it to a low minimum. He was not sure if his mind or body could take it if the two were hanging all over one another constantly. The jealousy might become just a little too much for him to take. But they were discreet and considerate of Quatre’s and Trowa’s feelings.

Heero had never struck Trowa as someone who could handle an overabundance of physical affection or cuddling that much anyway. In private or public.

Catherine was frowning still. “Are you sure? Maybe they’ve broken up and just haven’t mentioned it to you yet. Are you sure they are still together?”

Trowa held back a face. Oh he was quite certain they were still together. Aside from the minor, few and far between moments of affection that they shared while he or Quatre were present in the room, they still shared the same bedroom with one another. And if the noises that he could occasionally hear in his own bedroom coming from theirs in the dead of night were any indication, breaking up was the last thing on either males’ mind.

“I am quite sure. They’re still seeing each other.”

“I see. Well that’s good for them, I suppose. If they’re happy.” She nodded with her words, sipping her coffee. It was quiet for a moment, the rain upon the roof seemed oddly hypnotic to him, before she spoke again. “What about Quatre?” Trowa blinked from the rain’s spell.

“Pardon?”

“Quatre. Is Quatre seeing anyone?” She asked. He frowned lightly against the mug.

“No, he isn’t seeing anyone.” he answered cautiously. She tilted her head. “Quatre is too busy with his job to consider dating anyone right now.” Far too busy. It was something that Trowa found he was, secretly, extremely thankful for. At the same time, though, he was unusually sad about it, but not in the way that a friend was supposed to be. It surprised him, how suddenly selfish his thoughts could turn. It was a good thing that Trowa kept such things to himself.

“That’s right, he’s in politics now, yes? He works with Relena Peacecraft doesn’t he?”

“He is on her council. She appreciates his knowledge of the past.”

“Oh I see.” she muttered . Trowa watched her look down into her coffee, run a slender finger around the lip of the mug in a slow movement. He waited, it was coming, he knew it was. “So you know that he isn’t seeing anyone, for certain?” Trowa nodded minutely. Catherine looked at him. “And I take it you aren’t seeing anyone either?”

There it was. “Catherine,” he began, slightly exasperated. He set the empty mug on the table far harder than necessary or proper. “let me answer your question here and now: Quatre and I are not dating, and we won’t be dating anytime in the coming future.”

“Why not?”

“Because.” Trowa answered flatly.

Catherine’s frown darkened. “ ‘Because’ is not an answer Trowa. It’s an evasion.” she said surprisingly cold. Trowa bit back his retort. He rose from the chair instead, mug in hand. He was amazed that it hadn’t shattered when he slammed it onto the counter in annoyance. “Now give me a real answer Trowa.”

“It is for the same reason that Quatre is not dating anyone. He is too busy with work…”

“Trowa, the two of you live together. You see each other every single day. You-”

“It would not work Catherine.”

“Why not, Trowa?”

He sighed. “Quatre is very busy. He is hardly ever home and I’m sure that the last thing he needs is to feel guilty because he is not around for a significant other to be close to.” Trowa looked down at the mug that he was filling with hot water. “Besides,” he added.

“Besides?”

“I highly doubt I am…his type.”

He could just imagine her tilting her head in question. “His type??”

“Yes Catherine,” he sighed reaching up to retrieve the box of tea he knew to be kept in the cabinet above his head. “I am quite certain that I am not his type.”

Trowa was fairly certain that he was not Quatre’s type, not at all. He was fairly certain he was none of their types. He was no one’s “type.” His aberrant body separated him from the nearly entirety of the human population. Trowa had certainly never met anyone else that was “like” him. He closed his eyes and sighed slowly. No, it was apparent that he was never going to be anyone’s type. Just imagining how they would react if they were to know. It sent a strangely frightening shiver down his spine.

“Trowa.” She called. He opened his eyes at the sound, mildly curious. Had there been a tinge of anger in his sister’s normally cheerful voice? Mentally, Trowa shrugged and dismissed the notion, pulling the box down from the cabinet. “Why are you wearing that?” He nearly dropped the box. She couldn’t possibly know. Trowa opted for a continued silence. He could hear her rise, her chair squeaking slightly against the floor. “Why are you wearing a corset beneath your shirt?”

He really did drop the box this time. Amazingly, it did not open on impact and the countertop remained spotless. “I am not-”

“Don’t even try to lie to me, Trowa Barton.” She bit across him. “I could see the back of it through your shirt when you reached for the tea.” He cursed inwardly; he knew he should have thrown that sweater over himself as well. “Trowa, you promised.”

“Catherine,” He tried. His words did not get far. Her slender hand appeared on his equally slender shoulder and pulled him about with a strength Trowa did not know she possessed. Though similar in size, he had to marvel at just how intimidating Catherine could look when properly angered.

“You promised me that you would stop wearing that.” She said, her fingers gripping his shoulder. “You promised me when you left the circus that you wouldn’t do this to yourself anymore.”

His own eyes narrowed. “I did no such thing.” He answered darkly. Managing to pull himself from her suddenly strong grip, Trowa turned back to the mug of hot water and the tea.

“Yes you did, you told me that you would stop. Trowa, honestly, you need to stop wearing that thing already, like you said you would. It’s not going to help you forever.”

“I am fine with it,” he said coldly. “And in case you have forgotten, you were the one who introduced me to this ‘thing’.”

Catherine sighed. She shook her head slightly as she spoke. “I know that Trowa, and I wish that I hadn’t.” He could feel himself bite the inside of his cheek as though to steady himself. “Please, Trowa. Stop doing this to yourself, please. You told me you would stop wearing that around your chest.” His breath quickened, hands tightening to the point of pain around the mug in his hands. “Trowa, please. You could kill yourself with that thing, with the way you wear it and how active you usually are.” Active. He found that he couldn’t focus on the area ahead of him; his blood was pounding in his ears much too loudly. “You could end up damaging your body.”

It was impossible to explain but something within the confines of his being shifted drastically. An enormous amount of heat rushed through his blood and body. It empowered him in a bizarre way. A vaguely familiar one. It forced his hands to slam the mug hard enough onto the counter that it cracked noticeably. It closed his eyes tightly and coated his voice in a strange tone that Trowa had not adopted for many years. “Let it be damaged, I don’t care!!”

The silence that followed was absolute. Even the rain seemed to have been stunned into silence from the strange outburst that he had just undergone. Trowa stared blankly ahead, swallowing heavily to alleviate the odd lump in his throat. His shoulders rose and fell with his heavy breathing; what in the world had that been? He knew that he knew it but Trowa could not find the name for the strange emotion that had just surged through his being and out of his mouth. It had been like his body was on fire with it; he had wanted nothing more than to break something with it’s strength.

Anger? Had that been it? Had Trowa actually been angry? When was the last time Trowa Barton had ever been angry?

A sudden cold presence across his hands startled him from his thoughts. He looked down at the cold cloth that Catherine had draped over them. It was only then that Trowa truly noticed that his hands were very uncomfortably hot, border lining on pain, and that there was water all over the countertop that steamed slightly.

“I don’t think it was hot enough to really burn. Does it hurt a lot?” she asked softly. Trowa shook his head. A small smile crossed her face. “That’s good. Just leave that on for a couple minutes just to be safe.”

He sighed softly, stepping back slightly so she could wipe the hot water off the counter with a different towel. She continually kept her back to him as she worked, setting the cracked mug carefully in the sink, taking a new one out of the cabinet to her left. Pouring water into it and setting a tea bag into the fresh water that she had poured. Smiling at him gently, Catherine removed the cold towel from his hands; his fingers were a pale reddish color. It wouldn’t be permanent.

She was still smiling when she held out the mug to him. Trowa found that he could barely look at it. "I’m sorry Catherine”

“It’s alright, Trowa.” She replied with a shake to her head.

“No it isn’t. This isn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have, I don’t know why… This isn’t your fault.” Catherine said nothing. She watched him fix his gaze to the floor, trying to understand how he had felt such strong emotion once again. He had not felt anything like that for so long…it was odd and unwelcome. He heard her set the mug down; his own eyes closed. They did not open again until he felt her arms wind themselves about his waist and squeeze lightly.

“This isn’t your fault either, Trowa.” She told him softly, her head resting very lightly against his chest. He did not move but the muscles in his body relaxed quite slowly to her touch. Catherine smiled up at him. “How bout an early dinner? And then you can get some sleep, you must be tired from riding in the rain and cold. And then tomorrow we can get up early and see everyone and get ready for the shows this week.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” he managed quietly. She stepped back.

“Good, then let’s make dinner together. We’ll go all out.” She laughed. Trowa nodded lightly.

He stood beside her some minutes later, cutting up vegetables while Catherine sautéed them and worked on homemade soup at the same time. He listened as closely as he could as she went on and on about things that had been going on in the circus, gossip as she called it. He didn’t have to answer her, she knew that he was listening and was more than happy just to continue discussing the current events of the troupe without much input from him. Just the occasional body movement was good enough for her it seemed.

Trowa watched her for a moment from the corner of his eyes as she started a long story about the tightrope walkers’ fight over something or other. She had a smile on her face as she spoke, as though nothing in the world could possibly be wrong. It still managed to amaze Trowa, how quickly she had adapted to him and his personality. And how quickly she managed to write off his abnormality. She was the only one that he felt almost able to discuss it with…or at least acknowledge it.

He had not confided in her about it; Trowa had not confided in anyone about it. Catherine had discovered his secret all on her own, although he had to assume that she would have as they had been living in very close quarters when he was using the circus as his cover for the Operation Meteor. That did not mean it had not startled him greatly when she stumbled upon him in a state of undress at night. He was not sure if it had frightened him or not; Trowa was not certain that he could feel fear any longer. All he knew was that it had made his blood turn suddenly and painfully cold and he was absolutely certain that he would have to find someplace new to hide his identity. He had expected her to scream, throw him out of the place, call him a dozen names that he had heard before. He expected her cruelty at his strangeness. Trowa had not expected the kindness that she showed him. He had not expected the warmth of a motherly embrace or a blur of gentle words.

Trowa had not expected her to treat him kindly, to treat him almost the same as she always had. He had not expected her maternal protection. He hadn’t expected her help in furthering the length that he maintained his secret. He hadn’t expected her to continue even acknowledging his existence. Her kindness never ceased to surprise him.

The meal they shared was quiet yet delicious affair, with many foods that Trowa could partake in without silent complaint. Catherine had always been very good at making sure that he had always plenty to eat, sometimes she made sure he had too much. It also helped that she was rather health conscious. While she was not a vegetarian like himself, she understood the value of having a good portion of fruits and vegetables with any meal. He spent most of the meal in silence, listening to her continuing stories as he ate with polite vigor. It had been sometime since Trowa had eaten something that she had prepared. And it was not long before he felt a pleasant sort of numbness settled over him from the warmth and food.

“Well that was delicious.” She said finally, setting down her glass. Trowa nodded softly. “Shall we turn in?”

“Alright.” The two made quick work of the remaining dishes, Trowa excusing himself when Catherine suggested that he clean up and get ready for sleep, and assuring him that she was fully capable of putting dishes away by herself. He stepped out of the bathroom a short time later, dressed in a warm pair of dark colored pajamas. Minus the corset. It was a feeling that he still was not used to, cloth against this sort of flesh. It still managed unnerve him after all this time. Catherine raised her head and smiled at him, rising from where she was setting a pillow or two and blankets on the couch.

“Ah, well at least you don’t wear that thing to sleep. That’s a start.” She said with a good natured smile on her face.

Trowa fought back a face. “Do you think I am stupid?” he asked with only a slightly offended tone. If his bedroom door had no lock and he ran the risk of having someone intruding on him in the middle of the night or in a moment of privacy, Trowa sure as hell would wear the corset to bed as well.

“I know you’re not stupid Trowa. But I do know that you are stubborn.” She leaned up and kissed his cheek lightly. “Good night Trowa.”

“Catherine.”

“Hm?” She muttered as she fluffed the pillows a bit. “What is it?”

“Go sleep in your own bed.”

“Oh but Trowa, you’re the guest. And the couch is so uncomfortable to sleep on, it’ll mess up your back-”

“And you’re the one who has to do a show soon. I highly doubt that a sore back will improve your aim.”

“But Trowa-”

“No.”

Catherine gave him an annoyed look. She sighed, standing straight. “Fine, fine. Be that way, ruin the basics of hosting a guest in someone’s home.”

“Good night Catherine.” He sighed. Smiling again, she hugged him lightly. Trowa fought back a grimace well.

“Good night Trowa. Sleep well.”

Trowa waited until she had closed her bedroom door and the faint light from beneath the crack beneath it had disappeared before sitting himself on the couch. The rain had slowed to a gentle tapping above his head. He sighed gently to himself before rising again and moving to the wall switch. The darkness engulfed the place completely; he felt his way carefully to the couch, stopping only when his knees bumped into the invisible cushions. Blind, he pulled back the several blankets she had thrown over it and laid himself down. Already, Trowa knew what Catherine was talking about; it felt as though there was a very long pole stabbing him all along his spine. He shifted slightly. Now it was poking into the small of his back along the organs in his side.  _Perhaps tomorrow night I’ll sleep on the floor…_

Perhaps it had been boredom, or the drumming of the light rain, but Trowa somehow managed to find sleep on that very uncomfortable couch. He was sure he had fallen asleep because he awoke late into the darkness, breathing shallowly. A thin layer of sweat adorned his forehead, dripping down the side of his neck. Running his hand through his hair, Trowa sat up just a bit. What had he dreamed this time? He couldn’t remember.

A small sound broke him from his thoughts. He looked towards the sound; it had come from Catherine’s room. The light beneath of the door was on. It flicked off just as quickly as he had seen it. Trowa arched an eyebrow slightly. Catherine had been up? Whatever for? A curious memory floated through his mind briefly. Frowning slightly, he reached into the darkness with his hand and felt about the air for the small and plain side table he knew to be sitting along the end of the couch he had been resting his head on. He flicked on the lamp that was there, blinking slightly in the light that it spread over him.

One solitary mug of tea sat upon a worn looking book under the lamp’s glow. Trowa blinked down at it. He looked towards the bedroom door for a moment then sighed. It would seem that Catherine had noticed his apparent restless sleep and realized that he would wake soon. He never realized how loud he was when his sleep became disturbed. He must have been quite loud to have woken her up and prompt her to prepare an insomnia remedy that Trowa had almost completely forgotten about. Trowa would have to thank her for it in the morning. Reaching over, he took a sip of the hot tea and sat back with the book on his lap. He could not recall if it was something he had read before. Trowa certainly didn’t recognize the cover. That didn’t stop him from opening it with one hand and reading the first page.

He had forgotten how effective it was as well. The warmth of the tea running down his throat and settling in his limbs combined with the soothing effects of late night reading sent a calmness through him. He barely managed to set the mug down on the floor before it forced his heavy-feeling eyelids to close.

Trowa would definitely have to thank her come the morning.

Sunlight was what woke him, falling over his face and changing the blackness of his sleep to a light colored reddish orange. Groaning slightly, he opened an eye and closed it just as quickly as the bright sunlight from the window that was opened nearby assaulted his vision. Apparently, it had been a very effective remedy; he had slept through the rest of the night with little trouble or so it seemed. With a quiet yawn, Trowa sat up on the couch and almost immediately wish he hadn’t. He double over slightly, hands pressed against the very painful ache all along his back.

Tonight, he was going to sleep on the floor.

Looking around, it appeared that Trowa was the first one to wake. A sign that Catherine was up and about was nowhere; her bedroom door wasn’t even opened. It seemed to be not long after dawn judging by the light that he could see from the window beside him. The others of the troupe were probably just starting to rouse themselves. He stood, albeit slowly to prevent further strain on his already sore back, and grimaced only slightly at the feeling of a cold floor beneath his feet. He would have to deal with it for the moment, as his bag was sitting by the door inside the bedroom and he had no desire to wake his sister any earlier than she needed to be up. His steps were purposefully quiet as he went into the kitchen and, after placing the empty mug in the sink to be washed a bit later, started to look around in the cabinets and refrigerator.

By the time Catherine came out of her bedroom, already dressed and rubbing the sleep from her eyes lightly, Trowa had almost fully completed making breakfast for the two. She stopped in her tracks, staring at him. He looked up from placing a cup of coffee at her usual seat.

“Good morning Catherine.” he greeted.

“Good morning Trowa.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Uh huh. Did you?”

“It could have been better. Thank you for the tea.” He said, setting a glass of milk at his own space.

She smiled a bit. “You’re welcome Trowa. I didn’t know you could cook.”

“It’s a newly acquired skill.” He replied with a slight shrug. “I thought you’d like something to eat and since I was up before you.”

Catherine’s smile grew. She crossed the room and hugged him lightly. “Well aren’t you a sweet little brother? Thank you Trowa.”

“Of course Catherine.”

Breakfast was a far more hurried meal than dinner. Trowa understood of course; their days had always started quite early when he had been living with the troupe and he assumed that it would not change even with his leaving. Catherine continually commented on his cooking throughout the meal, to each Trowa gave her a quiet thank you. He had no idea why she found it such a big deal. Who couldn’t cook eggs, cut up fruit, or pour cereal into a bowl? He excused himself briefly after the meal, disappearing to change his clothes while Catherine washed and put away the dishes that had used.

She frowned only slightly when he reappeared but thankfully kept her comment to herself. “Well how about we go and see everyone now and get started with the day?”

“Sounds fine.”

Slipping on his shoes, he followed her out of the small place and into the cold but bright morning. There was a thick layer of slick frost adorning the grass around them from the rain that had frozen over after the storm. The air smelled amazingly fresh, filled with scents that he had not experienced since his departure from the group. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing as deeply as he could without going too lightheaded from the piece.

“You missed it, huh?”

He opened his eyes and looked over at her. “Yes.”

“Well let’s go say hi to everyone and find you something to do.”

The morning went without much incident. He followed Catherine about the grounds and familiarized himself with the people he had lived among for quite some time. He remembered the grounds of the circus quite well, as long with the numerous people they encountered throughout the morning. Most of them seemed quite surprised, and extremely happy to see him. Some overly so, like Sophia the contortionist who had shrieked his name at a decibel Trowa had assumed was impossible for humans to hear and nearly knocked him flat on his butt with the tackle hug she put him through. And because Trowa found that he had no true reason to give her a black eye for invading his personal space, he merely let her squeeze him to death. That and he made a point to usually keep his fists to himself when it came to overly emotional women. Others were far more discreet about their happiness, and much less painful about it. Manuel, the lion tamer, offered him a genial smile and a warm handshake accompanied by a few kind words. They shared a very calm and typical conversation, asking one another about their lives briefly before he excused himself to finish his practice with the whip. He still seemed to strike himself three times out of ten. Thought that was still better than the five times out of ten as it had been before.

Some of the troupe were not so excited to see that he had returned. Renee, the resident magician and “mistress” of slight of hand as she called herself, gave him a rather cold greeting and quickly made an excuse to get as far away from him as possible. Trowa assumed that she was still most upset of his lack of awe and idol worship of her “amazing” skills and tricks. He had never found the art of prestidigitation all that intriguing, or difficult. And the fact that he had managed to see through just about every single one of her tricks certainly didn’t help her mood towards him.

And then of course there was Thomas.

“Holy shit, it is true. You are still alive.” Trowa would recognize the snide tone of voice from just about anywhere. Beside him, Catherine stopped, her eyes closing as though she were praying strength, and turned around with a benign smile plastered on her face.

“Hello Tom.” she greeted with believable cheerfulness.

He shuddered noticeably. “Catherine, please.”

“Oh yes, I’m sorry. You prefer ‘Thomas,’ don’t you?”

“You know I damn well do. It sounds better in the program.”

“Yes, of course it does.” she muttered softly. Trowa could sense that she was having immense trouble holding back a snide smirk of her own.

“So Trowa Barton. Been a bit hasn’t it?” He asked. He didn’t answer. It was an obvious rhetorical question. Hazel eyes swept over the entirety of him. Trowa fought back a shift of weight under its scrutiny. “You look about the same as usual, right down to that messed up hairdo of yours.”

“As do you Thomas. A shame to see that you injured your leg.” he replied , gesturing to the long white cast that encased the majority of his left leg. “A serious break this time?”

“What? This stupid thing?” he laughed. Thomas leaned the majority of his weight on the other crouch, freeing one hand to brush back his hair. “Those doctors don’t know what they’re talking about. Three months for a silly old fracture, hah! I’ve been through so much worse.”

“Yes yes Thomas. We know you have. So much worse.” Catherine sighed, cutting off the impending story. Trowa merely nodded .

He snorted and turned his attention back to Trowa. “So are you actually staying this time or are you going to run away again?”

“Trowa’s here for a visit, Thomas. And he didn’t run away. He’s living with a couple of good friends who happen to be coworkers of his.” Catherine said with only a slight snap entering her voice.

“Ah yes that’s right, you got a new ‘job,’ didn’t you? What are you doing now? White collar work?”

“I don’t think my employment is any of your business, Thomas.” Trowa answered flatly.

Thomas smirked. “That or your just embarrassed that outside the circus all you’re capable of doing is mindless paper pushing, eh?”

He bit back the angry retort, and the wince of truth as the validity of his situation seemed to stab harder at him than normal.

“Very mature Thomas. At least Trowa is able to do a job at the moment.”

“Ah my pride is wounded Catherine. Really.” he sighed theatrically. She fixed him with a glare that he ignored by glancing at Trowa again. “So you live with a couple of friends, hm?”

“Yes, if you must know, I am.”

“They were three boys last time I heard, weren’t they?” Trowa decided not to open his mouth. He gave a small nod instead. “Well how are your lovers doing anyway?”

“I’m afraid you have been misinformed.” Trowa said in a deadly quiet voice. “I am living with friends, not lovers.”

“You’re living in closed quarters with three guys all your age. There has to be something going on.”

“Does there?”

“Of course, or else you’d be living with a girlfriend, or at least alone.”

“We are sharing a house to cut the living expenses.”

“You’re sharing a house with three guys.”

“They’re friends, Thomas. Not boyfriends.” Catherine chimed in. Thomas snorted.

“Is there a fucking difference in this case?”

“A big difference.”

“Oh really? Then tell me Trowa, who are you seeing?” he asked with a false innocent grin. Trowa bit his tongue.

Catherine was not being so prudent.

“What’s it to you if he’s seeing someone, if anyone?”

“Call me curious. Come now Trowa, don‘t be so shy. It‘ll be our little secret. And of course, the third wheel as well.” He snorted gently to himself. Trowa could think of no one who gossiped more than Thomas of the Trapeze.

“Don’t you have some painkillers to take?” she snapped annoyed. “Didn’t the doctor tell you to take them three times a day? It’s almost lunch now, so shouldn’t you be taking them?”

“What are you, my mother?” he sneered. Thomas heaved a heavy sighed and turned back to Trowa. “Every since you left she’s been looking for somebody to mommy. Apparently my vaguely wounded leg qualifies me for the appalling task.”

“I do not mommy him!”

“You keep thinking that, darling.” Thomas said, patting her on the shoulder. “If you will both excuse me, there are things that need to be done. And as it is getting close to lunch I am going to find myself something to eat as I am absolutely starving. Nice to see you again Trowa, let me know whenever you decide to go back to your little boyfriends.” He nodded his head to them both, turning on his crutches and hobbling off. He didn’t seem to notice the smoldering look Catherine was aiming at his back. Ducking down, she picked up a large rock and tossed it in the air twice.

“I bet I can peg the jerk. He’s moving slower than he usually does since he hasn’t taken his painkillers yet.” Trowa sighed himself, setting a hand on hers just enough to make her lower her arm.

“Don’t.”

“Why not? He deserves it.”

“It's not worth it.”

“Alright. I’ll leave him alone. For now. But he makes one more snide little comment and this rock cracks his head.”

Secretly, Trowa felt rather sorry for the rock.

The two shared a brief and hurried lunch together back in her little place. The afternoon was spent with him finishing his reacquainting himself with the others of the troupe and then performing various odd jobs that others asked of him. Mostly the carrying and unloading of various boxes for various performers. It was while he was unloading one box that he ran into the other people of his former “chosen” area of circus expertise.

“Hey you’re back!” Trowa looked up at the voice. He hardly recognized the two men who were smiling at him widely. Then again, it was very rare that he ever saw them without the massive amount of makeup they applied daily to their faces.

“Welcome back, man. It’s been quiet without you here.”

Trowa nodded a greeting to them lightly. “This is not permanent. I’m here for a short visit…”

“Really? Well that’s disappointing.”

“Disappointing?”

“Yeah.” The other sighed, running a hand through his natural blonde hair. “Things haven’t been the same since you disappeared on us.”

“We’re not nearly as popular as we used to be.” He sighed. Trowa blinked ; that had not been what he had expected to hear. Trowa had often assumed that, because of the popularity of his dangerous acrobatics and his possibly lethal decision to allow Catherine to use him as a human target, he had turned the others away from him. His performances, after all, did seem to draw larger crowds.

“I don’t know what you mean.” he said.

“Well, you always went on before us and gave everyone near heart attacks with your performance. We were a great for their pulses. Since you left, well the laughter, it’s just not the same, you know?”

He had no idea.

“So what are you doing now? Catherine said you got a new job?”

“Yes, with a couple of friends. We're living together.”

“That must be nice.”

“It’s been very interesting.”

“They’re treating you’re nicely, right?”

“I couldn’t think of a reason they wouldn’t, or why you would think they might.”

“We’re just checking to make sure they’re not messing with one of us.”

Trowa blinked. “Things are fine.”

“Trowa, can you give me a hand?” Catherine called out to him. “I need to take this box over to the animals’ cages but it’s really heavy. I can’t do it myself.”

He nodded slightly. Rising, Trowa brushed some of the dirt off his pants. “Coming.” he turned back to the two makeup-less clowns. “Excuse me, it was nice to see you again.”

“Same here. We’ll talk later, yeah?” Trowa nodded lightly. “Great. See you later then, Trowa. Nice to see you back here!”

Trowa waved at them slightly as he walked over to Catherine who was smiling brightly at him. Kneeling down, he tested the weight of the box; it was rather heavy. He lifted it into his arms, being sure to use his legs and not his back which had only just stopped hurting from that horrible couch he had slept on.

“Ah thank you Trowa. Now let me just get this end here and then we can go take it.” she said, reaching for the end of the box nearest to her. With a shake to his head, he stepped back out of her reach, feeling the box shift back into his chest. “Trowa!”

“I have it.”

“Trowa Barton, I asked you to help me carry the box, not carry it all by yourself. Now let me get this end.”

“I have it.” he said over his shoulder as he walked off with it in a deliberately slow walk. He could hear Catherine snorting annoyed behind him and could picture her with her hands on her hips in a huff.

“You are so stubborn.” Catherine sighed , following after him. He slowed his stride until she was walking along beside him.

The air around them was suddenly full of the scent of hay, both old and new, animal furs and flesh. A quiet cacophony of animal calls greeted them as the two entered, some curious, others warning. As they recognized the two newcomers, they quieted. Trowa looked around from the side of the box for a place to set it down. He noticed several other boxes piled off to one side. It wasn’t until he was straightening back up from setting it down that he noticed lamp-yellow eyes following him.

The lion tracked his movements with a strange look of comradeship, and condemnation.

“Hello there. It has been a while, hasn’t it?” Trowa found himself saying softly. He crossed to the large cage, cautious and respectful. The lion watched him unblinkingly. Trowa sensed he was less than pleased with him. Mindful of this, Trowa stopped just before his cage, kneeling down in the dirt to lower himself.

“I see you’re trying to get back in his good graces.” Manuel said . Trowa glanced to the right for a moment, just long enough to see him leaning against the bar of the cage with his arms crossed casually, before returning to meeting the lion’s stare . “He’s been in a mood lately. Worse than usual, doesn’t let anyone near him. He’s even been distant and agitated at me, and I’ve been with him for about ten years.”

Trowa nodded lightly, keeping his gaze still. His eyes were starting to water.

“Of course, he didn’t start acting so moody until after you left for whatever you’ve been doing.” he said. “So of course, I blame you for the fact that he tried to bite me very hard the day after you left.” There was a smile in his voice.

He could understand. Trowa had, after all, left the troupe without giving his friend a proper good bye. Crouched on the floor, Trowa continued to stare, watching his own reflection in the gold eyes. He hoped his sincerity. Apparently it was, since the lion stepped closer to the cage and lowered his head to him slightly. Slowly, Trowa slid his hand through the bars. He would not blame the lion if he lashed out in the last moment, just to spite him.

The lion planned no such action as Trowa’s hand touched the soft fur of his mane without incident. The lion's eyes closed as he moved his fingers slowly through the thick mane.  _Does this mean that you forgive me for not saying a proper good bye to you?_

Manuel sighed. “How unfair. I train with him for ten years and it took him two weeks to forgive me whenever I ticked him off. And you come back and he forgives you right away. I’m very jealous.”

Catherine giggled, coming over to them from where she had been sorting through boxes. “But Trowa’s good with all sorts of animals.”

“He trusts him more than me? So does that mean that he can do my job better than me? Is that what you‘re saying, Catherine?”

“I never said that Manuel.”

“I know that.” he chuckled. Trowa watched the lion do something very akin to an eye roll. He held back a smile as he stroked the fur.  _I know…his jokes are very bad, aren’t they?_

Trowa spent the rest of the afternoon with the animals, attending to boxes that had been left there for sorting. Catherine and the others had disappeared to practice, although they occasionally wandered in to chat for a moment or escort an animal. Trowa assisted where he could. Thomas came by to press Trowa further only once. He was interrupted by the lion, who was apparently too irritated with his incessant prying. He let out a roar that sent Thomas jumping and toppling to the ground. Trowa barely manaed to keep back a smirk as he helped the wounded man back to his feet.

“Jesus Christ. It always does that when I’m around.”

“Does he now?” Trowa asked flatly as he stood him up and handed him his crutches. Thomas glared over at the lion, who let out a low growl from his throat.

“I swear that thing hates me.” He muttered. Trowa shrugged , going back to the box nearest to the lion’s cage. The lion eyed Thomas from over Trowa’s back when he took a step towards him on the crutches. Trowa could hear the starts of another roar in the animal’s chest. Thomas seemed to notice as well. “I think I’ll go take my medication now. You just keep going with whatever the hell you’re doing.”

He nodded , waiting for the steps to fade before looking at the lion who was resting comfortably on the floor again. 

"That wasn't nice, you know."

The lion simply looked at him. Shaking his head lightly, Trowa returned to the boxes.

Trowa finished every box before he stopped again. It must have been put in there by mistake. It had absolutely nothing to do with the ropes and harness cluttered in the box. Still, Trowa lifted it out of the bottom of the box gently, as if it were glass instead of painted plastic. Cradling it inhis hands, he ran his eyes slowly over the piece, absorbing the details. As if he could forget. The smooth surface and white coloring were so familiar. He brushed his thumb over the purple cross. Taking a deep breath, Trowa turned it over and lifted it to his face. He could almost hear the children’s laughter and the gasps and applause of an awed crowd.

“Do you miss it Trowa?” Catherine’s voice snapped his head around; he hears his neck crack. Trowa shrugged and set the mask back in the box. Smiling, she knelt beside him and picked up the half mask. “Ah so here’s where it went. I was wondering where it disappeared to.”

“I just found it.”

“I can see that.” she smiled. “So are you going to answer my question?”

He looked down at the empty box. “I suppose I do.”

“The show’s starting. Why don’t you come watch?”

“I’ll watch from the side.”

She shook her head. “If you think you’ll be able to see it better.” Standing, Catherine brushed off her costume lightly before offering him a hand. Trowa took it and rose, passing one more look to the lion before following her out towards the rings. He looked over his shoulder only once.  _I will be here for a bit longer. And I will say good bye this time._

Trowa, leaning against a pole in the shadows, watched the show from the performers’ entrance in the main tent. The circus’ show was still immensely popular, judging by the crowd’s size and response. It was almost exactly as he remembered. Of course, Thomas was not the star of the trapeze as his leg was broken. His replacement, a woman Trowa knew mostly through appearance, was an admitted improvement; her ego was at least not causing her to break her limbs. The trick riders were a little different since Aimee left. The group seemed to have lost a bit of their spark and flair. And of course, Catherine was no longer using _him_ as her human target. The target they had, someone new to the troupe since Trowa didn't recognize him at all, showed his fear too easily. If it had been anyone other than Catherine throwing the knives at him in rapid succession, Trowa was certain that fear would lead to serious injury.

The sounds of the circus overwhelmed his senses as the performances poured on. Leaning his head against the pole, he let his eyes drift close to appreciate the long-forgotten sensations. The sounds of children’s excited chattering . The startled gasps from the lion’s roar and daring tricks upon the trapeze or tightrope. The riotous laughter. The cacophony was a surprisingly blessed change from the mediocrity of his current life.

It was late when the show ended. The last of the audience had left in good spirits, and Trowa helped with the cleanup that followed every show. Catherine came up to him, dressed in casual clothes, as he finished sweeping. She took the broom from him.

“Did you enjoy the show?” She asked sweetly. He nodded.

“Very good, as usual.”

“We try to do our best at every one.”

“Although I must say that your new target is--”

“A complete coward. I know.” sighed Catherine, setting the broom aside. “But not everyone has nerves of steel like you, Trowa. Most people are understandably terrified about someone throwing knives at them.”

“If he stood still, you'd never hit him.”

“If he stood still, I probably won't hit him, but the chance is always there. There could be a distraction, a slip of the fingers, a sneeze. Injury and death are always a concern.”

He shrugged. “If it happens, it happens. Worse things could happen.” 

Catherine, chuckling, shook her head. “You’re the only one I know who would say something like that.” She grinned, linking her arm with his and walking him back to her now dark trailer. They walked in silence for a few moments, the cold air whipping at them feebly. “You know.”

“Hm?”

“People still ask us about you.” She said. Trowa looked at her for a moment.

“They ask about me?”

“Mhm. Not a performance goes by where I don’t have at least one person come up to me and ask about ‘the clown with no fear.’ It seems we aren’t the only ones who miss your sour-looking face.”

He wasn’t sure what to say. Looking out across the grounds, he felt something very strange. Like a thrill of excitement or fear. 

“Trowa.” She said, pulling his gaze back to her. “I know that you’re only going to be here for a week, but, well, I can tell that you missed it. And we miss you. So why not one more show? I bet everyone would love it. One show before you leave. We can do it at the end of the week. That will give you lots of time to practice. Not that you need it, I bet.” She tightened her grip on him just a bit. “How bout it?”

One last show. A week to practice would be more than enough. He was already thinking he should start with his flips. The fall in the office made it quite clear they needed work. But did he really miss it so much?

“Alright.” Catherine tightened her grip on him and lead him inside. He had the strange sensation that this week was going to turn unexpectedly busy.

The remaining days of his vacation raced by. It was nothing but hurried meals and personal training. He knew the moves, he knew them well, but he was too out of practice to perform ably before a crowd with a corset around his chest. Catherine, unsurprisingly, had been furious at the idea of it. Trowa stubbornly insisted, however, and she forced herself to concede. It would be too obvious to everyone else if he didn't wear it. Even if they were “small and unnoticeable,” as Catherine argued. Trowa thought they had very different definitions of "small and unnoticeable."

She did, however, managed to convince him to loosen it. Which was a good idea. Trowa didn’t need to nearly suffocate, again, in front of a crowd.

The end of the week came in a rush. His old costume fit him as perfectly as it had, the mask rested in his slightly limp hand as he stood just outside the performers' entrance. He watched the current performer's finale with an odd, fluttering sensation in his stomach.

“You ready?” Catherine asked softly from beside him.

“Yes.” he heard himself saying although it was hard to hear over the din that the applause had caused. She managed to give him a smile before looking out to the ring as well where their circus master had taken stage.

“Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls of all ages. We have a special treat for you this evening.” A soft murmur rippled through the crowd. “The final performance of a performer who needs no introduction. Whose acrobatic skill has mesmerized, startled, and astounded audience all across the colonies and the planet’s surface,” Trowa had to admit that the ringmaster had always had a flair for drama and a charisma that was perfect for center stage. “Ladies and gentleman, it is my and the troupe’s great pleasure to present to you the final performance of the man that you have often asked for. Please, a round of applause for the farewell act of the clown with no fear!”

Trowa blinked at the excited roar erupting from the crowd. He had never imagined such a reaction, from anyone. The fluttering lifted from his stomach and settled firmly and pleasantly in his chest. Trowa slid the mask onto his face, feeling its cool material against his skin and breathing in its scent. A familiar calm rushed over him. He made his way out into the center ring in the fashion that he had always done:

Wearing no fear.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trowa is selected for a particular assignment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An edited version, because an edited version was sorely needed.

“Are you even listening to me?”  Duo cut across the momentary trance Trowa allowed himself.  Of course, the rap over the head with a thick manila folder also helped.  Trowa blinked.  Looking away from his work, Trowa took a moment to remember that he was sitting at his desk again, running through his usual piles of paperwork.

Had it really only been a week since the circus?

Sighing, he resisted the urge to shake his head and glanced at Duo lounging comfortably against his desk.  He had a look, an irritated frown that was just barely holding back a wide, amused smile.  Leaning against the edge of desk, he stood with his legs and arms crossed, the folder now keeping time against his hip.

“Welcome back to Earth, space boy.”

Trowa cringed at the new nickname.  “Space boy?” 

“Do I have your attention now?”

“What can I do for you, Duo?” 

“Man, and here I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.  Didn’t hear a word I said.”

“I was working Duo.”

“Is paperwork really that interesting?”

“What do you want, Duo?”

“Fine, fine.  Down to business.”  He leaned over the edge of the desk slightly.  “Une’s having an op meet.” 

Trowa turned in his chair and fixed Duo with a stare both irritated and incredulous.  He had been here long enough to know that the crude abbreviation stood for an operations meeting: a gathering of selected operatives to discuss all current information and attend to the minute detailing of upcoming operations.  It was standard procedure for Preventor, although Trowa assumed that it was standard for almost every law-enforcement agency, planet or colony based.

The problem was that Trowa had no place in an op meet.  Trowa was not a field operative, _which Duo is damn well aware of._ Trowa was a desk operative, a white-collar worker, and apparently stuck in a loop of paperwork, headaches, and dropping self worth.  Just returning from the circus certainly didn’t help.  The familiar level activity, the number of people that apparently needed him, had filled him with a sense of purpose that he now realized he lacked.  And the sudden lack of it, again, in his new life of paperwork and uniforms filled him with a brutal despondency.  Associating with anyone for more than a few minutes, most specifically his Preventer roommates, made him, inwardly at least, extremely irritable.

Trowa hadn’t thought Duo could ever be that tactless.  But if announcing an op meet he wasn’t needed at wasn’t a prime example of tactlessness, Trowa wasn’t sure what was. 

“Is that right?”  he asked as he turned back to his papers.  “Hurry up then before Une decides to make an example of you.”

“Trowa.”

“Go.  I’ll just keep working on these.”  _Since that’s all I’m apparently good for._

Duo shook his head, running a hand along the back of his neck.  “Wow you totally weren’t listening.  Dude, do you think I’m that thoughtless?”

“I admit, I’m starting to wonder.”  He said.  Duo snorted and smacked him with the folder, hard enough this time to let a minor but lingering ache.  Trowa wanted to shove the folder down his throat.  “Duo-”

“Une wants you there as well.”  Duo cut off.

Trowa frowned, finding it unusually difficult to understand the very simple sentence.  He wasn’t a field operative, so unless they wanted records of minutes—and for security reasons, they never did—there was no reason for him to be invited.  He was an unfortunately very successful desk operative, allowed to practice his penmanship on the innumerable papers he filled with a machine’s efficiency.  He had been very sure that Une was too pleased with him to change that.

“I’m not a field operative.”

“That’s about it change.”

“Why would Une want me in an op meet?”

“I think Une’s finally realized how much she’s wasted you the last, oh, five months.  Shocking isn’t it?  She’s finally figured out that you’re much better suited for a job that uses both halves of your brain.  Finally got it through her thick head,” Duo’s voice dropped considerably.  “that any green boy can do paperwork.  You are a Gundam pilot.  This is insulting to your skills, not to mention your intelligence.  So she’s transferring you to field work.  Took her long enough, right?”

“When did she decide this?”

“Not too long ago.  But she’s already got something that needs your skills in particular.  Not sure which ones she means exactly.  Now hurry up or she’s going to scream herself blue in the face.” 

Trowa let Duo tug him out of the chair and steer him down the aisle, one arm draped almost casually over his shoulder.  He allowed the contact, if only because he didn’t trust himself not to turn around and go back to his desk.

Une needed his skills particularly, when he had already been told last week how much she valued his productivity.  He wasn’t sure if he should be thankful or suspicious. 

Duo continued to complain about Une’s slowness in moving Trowa from paper pusher to field agent.  Trowa tried to be both attentive and distant.  He didn’t want to ignore Duo, but he also didn’t want to be included in the badmouthing of the woman who wrote their paychecks.  Besides, he respected for Une.  Duo did, too.

He was just less obvious about it.

At the end of the aisle was a door that Trowa had passed often but never had the chance, or desire, to open.  It was the same matted gray as almost every other door in the building, lacking name plate or stenciling to make anything other than inconspicuous.  Duo pushed it open and practically shoved Trowa inside.  The room itself was of a moderate size and a slightly lighter shade of gray than the door.  The overhead lights hummed softly and lit every corner, which more than made up for its lack of windows.  There were several long desks, each with three chairs.  Only a handful of them were occupied.

“Nice of you two to finally join us.”  Une said.  Several heads turned back.  Zechs looked vaguely amused.  Wufei’s eyes narrowed in apparent distaste.  And apart from a slightly curious arch of his eyebrows, Heero was completely expressionless. 

“Sorry, he needed a little convincing.”  Duo said.

Une, both hands on her hips, didn’t care for reasons.  “Sit down so we can get started _._ ”

The two of them walked up the center aisle.  Some of the operatives who watched him he recognized from his department.  People he worked with.  Others he didn’t, or knew of them only enough to know that they weren’t often on his floor.  Heero, seated on the right, motioned to the two empty chairs on either side of him.  Trowa took the chair farthest from the aisle. 

“Well, now that everyone is here, we can begin our briefing.”  She glanced at the door.  An operative he didn’t know, a young male, flicked off the lights.  Une’s flats clicked against the floor as she walked to a small, rolling table.  There was some rustling and then the soft whirl of a screen sliding down the wall. 

“She never warns us,”  Duo muttered.  Heero shook his head and squinted at the screen as it faded into black lines of text and a small colored photograph.  Trowa studied it as well..

“Who can tell me who this man is?”  she asked, mouse cursor hovering over the profile picture. 

Trowa recognized him almost instantly, having watched several of his addresses and interviews with Quatre recently.  A prominent and popular foreign dignitary, from a noble line that extended back several centuries.  Heir-apparent if he remembered correctly.  Not that that mattered; the county he represented had recently moved towards a democratic monarchy, introducing a parliament and limiting the powers of the royal family to less than basic.  He was destined to be a figure head when he took the throne, or at least he had been.  Despite his high noble standing, and the laws that prevented royal family members from holding office, he had somehow managed a seat in the budding parliament, and then an ambassadorship.  Foul play was suspected, and more likely than not.  The family, and the country, had a rich history of betrayal, blackmail and murder.

The same, of course, could be said of most countries.

“Anyone?”

“Fahd Kader.”  Trowa said

“Excellent.  Good to know someone still watches the news.”  Une said.  The cursor moved across the scene.  The picture receded to the upper left hand corner to make space for the profile that the Preventors had drafted.  Trowa read it quickly before comparing the data with the picture.

Even in the head shot, Trowa could tell that Kader was an imposing man.  According to the profile, he was at least six feet tall.  Having watched him with Quatre, however, Trowa was sure he was a bit closer to six and a half.  He was probably mostly muscle, broad of shoulder with a thick neck and thick limbs.  He had his black hair slicked back in the picture, which made the deep mahogany of his skin and his black eyes more striking.  All at twenty-nine.  It wasn’t surprising, then, that he was so popular with the young and with women; Trowa would’ve found him attractive himself, if Kader’s smirk didn’t peg him as megalomaniac with moderate sadistic tendencies. 

“I’m sure you’re all aware that Mr. Kader has been rather popular as of late.”  There was a soft muttering of concurrence.  “Despite some disturbing accusations about how he obtained his position, Kader has been described as a passionate speaker, a good Samaritan, a fighter for the oppressed and down trodden, and a realistic pacifist.  His popularity has soared, nationally and internationally, because of his rigid beliefs of environmental conservation and optional resources creation, firmer punishments for criminals, most especially terrorists, and global peace.”

“Sounds like Relena Peacecraft.”  someone muttered. 

“I’m sure he does, but Relena Peacecraft’s private life doesn’t bother me like Kader’s does.”

“Kader has a private life?  I thought his entire life revolved around his politics.” 

Trowa sighed.  It never ceased to amazing him how readily people believed that the private face and public face matched exactly.  The fact that some of these people were Preventers was unsettling.

“Oh it does.  The problem is, which set?”

The room went quiet.

The screen changed, beginning a long loop of photos and scans of written documents.  “These are courtesy of several of our informers.”  Trowa wonder if any of these “informers” was Quatre.  “As you can see, outside of the camera’s eye, Kader chooses to keep a very different sort of company see.  Most of these confirmed ties to the black market, mostly weapons, technology, and mercenaries.” 

“Typical politician.”

“While the _majority_ of political figures practice hypocrisy, most of it is limited to what they do with the secretaries on a Friday night.  Now, I don’t care about infidelities.   If someone wants to screw his secretary on top of the desk, let him.  What I care about is information that suggests that this man, who has more connections to bombs than a bad action movie villain, is such an accomplished actor that a third of the policing agencies Earth side colony side aren’t willing to touch him.” 

Trowa watched the continuous loop, tuning out most of Une’s ranting.  He frowned slightly as he started to pick up patterns.  The background seemed consistent.  Tables, lots of tables.  Plush armchairs.  Low lighting.  A part of a stage in a few.  Waiters and waitresses in questionable attire.  A naked leg, clad in a stiletto heel, dangling off the stage, obviously attached to a dancer that the camera missed.

 _All of these meetings are taking place in some kind of club._ A strip club most likely.  High class but raunchy.  What kind of people conducted business meetings with black marketeers specializing in a strip club?  Trowa decided he didn’t want to know.

“So why haven’t we moved on him yet?”

“Because none of this is admissible in court.  And there’s no proof of money being exchanged.  No documentation, no paper trail.  It looks like he’s just chosen a bad crowd.  The public will believe that, they like this idiot, and turn savage towards us.  Besides, it would be ridiculously easy for Kader to turn this against us by claiming we doctored these photos.  And since we can’t announce how we got them, we can’t exactly deny it.”

“So what do we need?”

“Proof of an exchange.  Money trail, paper work, photos, audio.  And it has to be done by a Preventer.”

“You’re suggesting a sting?”  Duo asked.

The lights flickered on.  “Exactly.  I want this guy in one of our holding cells, his assets cut off and telling every that can keep him from being approved for lethal injection.  And I want this done quietly.  The public does not need to know who close we get to more wars.”

“What’s the time frame?”

“It’s a hit and run.  We’ll have a week for prep and for securing a post on the inside.  One of our insiders is on the task.”

Zechs was still watching the photographs with a familiar focus.  “Where are we staging this?”

“I am sure most of you noticed that the location in most of these photos is the same.”  There was a murmur of assent.  “A large portion of these meetings take place in a very selective ‘gentleman’s’ club.  The club’s known for passing in and out of the radar.  It’s almost impossible to pin down a location for longer than a few weeks.  But our insider has a good foothold so she should be able to secure a temporary position for the undercover operative.”

“Only one’s going in?”

Une nodded.  “The rest are on prep and surveillance.”

“So who’s going in?” Duo asked.  Une swept the room, lingering for a half a second longer on Trowa than any of the other Preventers present.  He was fairly certain he knew the answer. 

After all, it wouldn’t be the first time Trowa had successfully hidden among the enemy.

“Trowa Barton.”

Trowa felt the eyes.  A first-time field operative being sent undercover, solo, to gather highly sensitive information.  Even if that Preventer was a former pilot exceptional when it came to espionage, the decision was probably somewhat unprecedent.  If anyone had any objections, however, they kept them to themselves. 

“What’s my role?”  Trowa asked, allowing some appreciation to color his voice..  Already, he was deciding on the proper etiquette of waiter or bartender and comparing the standard with whatever might be expected of an underground club’s staff.  He didn’t imagine there would be too many differences.  In any case, it had to be easier than impersonating an OZ soldier.

“Your role is very specific and risk of discovery is high.  It may be something of a challenge for you, although I have faith in your abilities.” 

Trowa felt a short flutter of apprehension.  Une was not one to sidestep a direct question.

“Understood.  Although I don’t see how a bartender or waiter could be that difficult.” 

Une shifted her weight slightly, twisting her left foot as if she was trying to grind sand. “Your role, Trowa, is going to be much more difficult than that.”  Trowa thought that only the former pilots in the room recognized the apprehension in her voice, the small lift in tone that was almost entirely foreign.  “Bartenders and waiters are not encouraged to form attachments of any kind with customers, making their positions unsuitable for this operation.  Therefore, you’ll assume a position that encourages at least some kind of attention or attachment.”

“That being?”

Une fixed Trowa with a gaze that was on the one hand disturbingly apologetic and on the other hand familiarly unyielding. “You’ll be a temporary entertainer.”

If Trowa had not trained himself to hide his emotions, if he had not learned that surprise, anger, and fear were far too dangerous to show, his jaw might have hit the desk.  Une was seriously ordering him to infiltrate a club with terrorist affiliations as some kind of exotic dancer?  And a woman on top of that, because juding from the pictures these were not men who enjoyed the company of their own sex.  Was Une actually telling him temporary transvestitism was required for a mission?

Except that it wasn’t actually temporary transvestitism.  Trowa bit the inside of his cheek.

He kept himself in check, maintaining a practiced silence while Une continued with her instructions for the operation and preparation.  To be told, he barely processed anymore than two words at a time.  Trowa felt more gazes, and he didn’t need to guess whose.  Breathing deeply through his nose, he kept himself calm and still until she gave the order for dismissal.  Then, when most of the operatives had filed out of the room, he folded his arms tightly over his chest.

Une watched him, glancing every so often between him and the door.  At least she had the decency to look apologetic.  After the third glance, however, she frowned.  Trowa looked back over his shoulder.

Heero and the others stood by the door, Duo’s hand hovering over the handle.  He looked torn between being a good Preventer and demanding explanations.  Sighing, Une waved them back.  The door clicked closed and they hurried to file around the back of his chair.

“I take it you’re a bit surprised, Trowa.”

“That’s something of an understatement.” 

She ran a hand through her hair.  “You weren’t my first choice, Trowa.  You were my only choise.”

“Are all the female operatives on maternity leave?”

Duo snorted.  Une frowned.

“That’s one of the reasons, yes.  But the other is that I don’t have anyone else who fit’s the criteria as well as you do.”

“I don’t think I fit it as well as you think.  I am not a woman, after all.”  He said.  His stomach rolled, as it always seemed to when he came close to discussing it. 

“I know you’re not a woman,”  _You do not know anything._ “But you can pass for one with the least effort.”

Trowa frowned.  “So you picked me because I’m androgynous?”

“That wasn’t the only reason.” 

“I’m not sure I want to know.”

“I know how you work, Trowa.  You’re disturbingly single minded when it comes to the mission.  Anything goes as long as it gets the job down. You don’t scare and you don’t back down easily, either.  And what I needed was an operative who, even begrudgingly, was going to run with this because it was their job.”

Trowa, slightly flattered, bit down on his tongue to keep the corners of his mouth from moving.

“I don’t trust any of my female operatives enough.  I know they’re well trained.  I’ve seen their progress reports and history, I’ve seen their medical reports.  But none of them have been through even a third of what you all had to put up with.” 

He hated the logic of her argument.  Trowa was, admittedly, the best option. 

“You also fit their criteria.”

He arched an eyebrow.  “And that is?”

“Tight-lipped and exotic.”  she answered.  Trowa didn’t bother to hold back the sneer.  “Trowa, these guys are deep underground; they need they can ‘trust.’  Girls too scared or without any other options, and you can play either one.  The club also caters to specific tastes.  You’re European but no one for the life of them can figure out if your French or Latin or something else entirely.  It’s attractive.

“And can you imagine what would happen if I sent Duo or Heero, or hell Zechs or Wufei?”  she asked.  Someone behind him sniffed indignantly.  “That’s not a sting.  That’s waving a flag in their faces and shouting ‘we’re onto you!’ through a megaphone.  I can’t trust these guys.”

“Gee, don’t we feel loved.”  Duo muttered.

“I’m not happy about it.  I’d love to give you a couple mundane field, but that’s not how things went, Trowa.  I  needed someone with very specific skills, who I can trust to get this done with the least risk of discovery, and that’s you.”

Trowa was quiet.  She was right, of course.  Given his past with infiltration, his combat skills if something went wrong, and his admittedly confusing appearance, he was the best choice.  On top of that, as his employer, she was within her rights to demand this of him, and it would be foolish, and ungrateful, to refuse.

That didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

“It’s not like I have much of a choice, is it?  Seeing as this is my job.”  he said finally.

Une smiled. “I knew you’d understand.”

“It would have been nice, however, if this had been in my contract.”

“It is in your contract.”  Trowa frowned.  He would have remembered reading a subsection about cross-dressing, he was sure of it.

“I don’t remember this in my contract either.”  Duo said. 

Une walked back towards the rolling table.  She took a large binder, from a small pile of paper and notebooks.  “Did you read your contract?”

“Of course I read the contract.”  Trowa answered with slight resentment.  He recalled the two and a half hours rather well, if only because he couldn’t remember ever having a headache quite that bad before.

“We read ours too, you know.”

She nodded as she flipped through the pages.  “Did you read the entire contract?”

“Yes.” 

“Did you _understand_ the contract?”

Trowa managed to stop himself from answering.  It seemed like a simple question, but as Trowa recalled the slow stretch of time he had taken to read novel-length pile of small-type legalese, he realized that he actually didn’t remember many of the stipulations of his job.  It was very likely, actually, that he had read about just this scenario and hadn’t been able to remember because he had been too bored to remember anything.

Lady found the page she had been looking for.  She extracted it, snapping the binder shut before setting it down.  Turning the page so the words faced him, she slid it in front of him for his inspection.  Trowa looked down at it, eyes instantly pulled to the bright pink highlighted section.  The shadows of the others fell over him as they read over his shoulder.

 

_Section 12 subsection 6 paragraph 3..._

“--Further more, all Preventor operatives understand that many, if not all, of the operations asked and/or ordered of them will have a certain amount of risk involved, as well as a level of discovery, injury, and/or death expectancy corresponding with the level of risk.  Operatives also understand that some of the missions expected of them will have a certain level of embarrassment/humiliation attached, and while illegal acts will never be asked of them, these acts cannot be used as plausible reason to refuse a specific mission.  These missions may include:--”

Trowa read down the long list of “inclusions” operatives were not allowed to be exempt from.  Near the end, in a blinding yellow highlight was the single sentence Une had obviously hoped he had remembered.

“--Infiltration of any number of potential dangerous or lewd locales in the guise of someone/anyone of the opposite sex. (prostitution and sexual favors notwithstanding)”

“Wow.  It really is there.” Duo muttered.  Heero made a small noise.

“Then I really don’t have a choice.”

“Not exactly, no.  As you can see, it is all there.  In black and white, and all perfectly legal.”

“Hey, you can send operatives undercover to suspicious mental hospital as mentally unstable patients?”  Duo asked, pointing to an inclusion Trowa had glossed over.  Une pulled the sheets back.

“If the need ever arises.  It’s in your contract.”  She answered sharply. 

“Have you ever had to?”

“That is none of your business, Duo Maxwell.” 

“Do you always carry a copy of that thing around?” 

“You’d be amazed at what short attention spans operatives have.”

“One more thing.”  Trowa said..  Une looked at him, head tilted slightly to the side.

“And that would be?”

He paused for a moment, embarrassment heating the back of his neck and threatening his face.  “You said that I take the role of an entertainer.  A dancer, I’m assuming.”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t dance.”

She waved a hand dismissively.  “Not a problem.  I assumed that ’dancing’ was not in your impressive repertoire, so I found someone to help.  I’ll introduce you to her now.”

“Her?”

“Yes, Duo.  Her.  Now don’t you have some work to do?”

Trowa watched them, rather begrudgingly, file out of the room.  They glanced at him, occasionally mouthin what he assumed was either encouragement or an apology.  He waited until the door was closed behind them before turning back to her.

“Let’s go and meet your instructor.”  Une said.  He rose as she strode to the door, pushing his chair back in out of habit.  The door clicked softly behind him, and as he walked away from it he had to wonder if his first field assignment could have been any worse.

He decided he’d rather not think about it.

The ride up in the elevator was quiet.  Trowa leaned back against the wall and watched the number display.  He hadn’t been up here since before visiting Catherine.  He simply hadn’t had the time.  He wondered if maintenance ever came up with a good reason why the bathroom mirror was shattered.

A soft chime accompanied the elevator’s gentle stop.  Trowa followed Une out of the elevator.  Even during the day, the training hall was practically deserted.  But from one of the side rooms came a heavy pulsating beat.  Une headed for it.

She pushed open the door.  The room itself was only slightly smaller than the meeting room he had been in prior.  The color was the same and there were no windows.  Instead of tables, however, there were mirrors covering three walls from ceiling to floor.  And there was one woman, standing in front of some folding chairs.  He had never seen her before but found himself oddly fascinated by the way she bobbed her head to the beat coming from the stereo, her lips tight around the mouth of a water bottle as she did a half step before going back to the head bob.  

“The room is to your liking?”  Une called.  The other woman started.  She turned, lips still around the bottle

Trowa had seen many things as a pilot, but this woman was a first.  He couldn’t stop himself from staring at her boyishly-short, purple and green hair that fell messily into her eyes.  And in some strange way, it completed with smooth caramel of her skin.    Her jeans were sat low on her lips. torn to almost uselessness, baring most of her long and unbelievably slender legs.  And she was wearing a shirt that had to have been tossed paper shredder and then gathered together to be tied up tightly just beneath her prominent breasts.  She set the bottle down on the chair and smiled, hands settling on her waist and forcing her chest out at them just a bit.  But probably not on purpose

“Place is perfect, Ms. Une.  We’ll get a lot of work done here.”  She eyed Trowa with unmasked interest.  “Is this my student?”

Une nodded “Trowa Barton, this is Lena Crawford.  Lena, this is.”  Lena smiled at him and, after making sure that her hand was perfectly clean by wiping it on her disheveled jeans, offered him her hand.

“ ’Sup, Trowa?  Pleasure to finally meet you.” He looked at it for a moment before grasping it in a relatively friendly handshake

“Likewise.”  he said, only slightly surprised by her strong grip.  She seemed to skinny for that kind of strength.  Trowa waited an acceptable five seconds before trying to remove his hand.  Lena refused to release it, pulling closer to her.  She slid his sleeve up to his elbow and inspected his forearm.

“Good texture.  A little scrawny but muscular.  Yeah, I can work with this.”

“He’s done acrobatics for a while.”

“Yeah?”  Lena asked, looking between the two with his arm still tight in her grip.  “He should have great balance and dexterity then.  Awesome, I’m not working with a total idiot this time.”

“Can I trouble you for my arm?”  Trowa asked, twisting it just enough to suggest he would break the hold himself if she didn’t.  She smirked at him before releasing it. 

“So you can teach him?”

“Sure, I can teach anyone to dance.”

“In a week?”  Trowa asked. 

She smiled.  “Well you’ll be here from start to quit every day, so yeah.”

“That’s 9 hours every day

“Give or take.”

“For a week.”

“Yeah.  Why?  Got a problem with that?” 

“Well I can see that you two are going to get along splendidly.”  Une said in a strangely cheery voice.  Trowa was sure she was trying not to laugh.  “Lena, I leave him to your capable tutelage.  Don’t overwork him.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll behave, Ms. Une.”  Lena said.  Une smiled at Trowa before leaving them alone. 

Lena finally turned down the stereo.  “Don’t look so excited, man.”

“I don’t exactly find the prospect of dancing for nine hours every day good.  No offense.”

“Gee, none taken.  Oh, and F.Y.I., darling.  That was sarcasm.” 

_I think I’m actually starting to miss the paperwork._

“So let’s see.”  Lena.  She circled him slowly.  He spun in a slow circle to keep her within his own sights; Lena didn’t seem to mind.  “Yeah, you’ll do fine, but not in those clothes.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“You can’t dance in that.”  snorted Lena.  “Do you own sweatpants?”

“Excuse me?”

“Sweatpants.  Sweatshirts.  Loose clothing you use for exercising?  Hell even cut up jeans will do.”

He thought about it for a moment.  “I have something at home.”

“Great!  Go home and get them.  Oh, tights would work really well.  Do you have tights?”

“No.”

“Well you might want to think about investing in them.”  She said.

“Are they necessary.”

“Well, no.  Loose jeans or sweat pants will do.”

“Then that’s what I’ll bring.”

“Pfft, fine be that way.  Some former gymnast you are.”

The ride home to their empty and still moderately warm house was uneventful.  He sighed for a moment at the, basking in it, drawing on its strength to get him through the next…seven hours.  Quatre’s coffee mug was still on the table, full; he had barely a sip before having to leave even earlier than usual for some meeting.  Breakfast had been uncomfortable quiet because of it, save for Duo’s mutterings about how Quatre could not enjoy his job nearly as much as he said.  Trowa was starting to think he might be right.

But there was nothing he could do about, apart from dumping the cold coffee down the drain.

He spent the rest of his thirty minutes tearing apart his room in the most orderly fashion he could manage while still appeasing his neatness.  It took him at least fifteen minutes to find anything that would be “suitable” for her.  How the loose jeans and t-shirt ended up under his bed he had no idea.  He tossed them in the duffle bag. 

Trowa frowned a bit, looking from the clock to the messy piles of flung clothes.  She could wait another ten minutes while Trowa straightened his bedroom so that he didn’t have to face the ransack in the evening.

He was throwing black dress pants into the bottom drawer that he caught sight of himself in the mirror.  He straightened, viewing his profile and, for a moment, listening to Catherine chastise him.  What would she say if she knew?  How much work did it take to learn to dance?  How much breath did he need?  Did he want to be, as Catherine so eloquently put it, “safe” or “sorry?

He rubbed his eyes before glancing at the clock.  He didn’t have much time, but he also didn’t want to run the risk.  Dropping the duffle bag, he tugged at the small buttons of his uniform.  Just a bit looser, that would be fine.  Tossing his shirt on the bed, Trowa eyed the black corset. He turned his back to see the clasps he had to work.  Occasionally, he still struggled with the corset’s unique design and needed a mirror to put it on or adjust it.  Getting it off was easy.  Usually.  Sliding his hands up his back, his hands fumbled over the clasps, flicking them open carefully.  Only a notch or two, that was all he needed.  The tight material eased from around his chest.  Already his lungs relaxed, thankful for the lesser strain.  He was tempted to loosen it more. 

Trowa dropped his hands.  _Damn it Catherine._ Snatching up his bag, he left the house, slamming his door and the backdoor harder than he meant and dropping his keys twice as he locked up.

He was calm when he walked back to the elevator, though, although much colder from driving highway speeds with his coat off.

Stepping out of the elevator, Trowa immediately heard, and felt in the soles of his shoes, a fast, heavy beat.  He followed it, the techno music growing uncomfortably louder as he approached the partially opened door.  He eased it open just enough to slip through.  And then he stopped and stared.  It took him a moment to realize the strange contortions Lena was displaying weren’t signs of a seizure or some epileptic attack.  Her twitching and popping joints were following the moments, locking and releasing to the rhythms with astounding fluidity.  The more he watched, the less painful the movements seemed.  They became planned, and then controlled.  Then elegant, and finally almost beautiful. 

He was starting to like it.

Trowa closed the door behind him.  Lena caught the movement’s reflection, noticed him standing there, and jumped.

“Jesus, just give me a heart attack why don’t you.”

“Sorry.”  He said, dropping his bag on an empty chair.  She shrug it off, skipping over to the stereo and turning it down to a tolerable level.  His ears were ringing. 

“So what you bring?”  she asked, peeking at the duffle bag.  If he hadn’t in the way, Trowa was sure she would’ve rooted through it herself.  He unzipped the bag and pulled out the loose jeans and the shirt for inspection. 

“I suppose these will do.  Tights would work so much better.”

He wondered if she failed to notice that she was wearing jeans and not tights herself.  “I don’t own tights.”

“And you call yourself a gymnast.”

“I call myself an acrobat.”

“Same diff, man.  Now go get changed.”

He definitely missed the paperwork.

Lena greeted him with a low whistle when he came back a few minutes later, and Trowa suddenly wished he had gone for sweatpants.  She eyed him without shame, taking in the leaner lines of his legs nicely displayed in the worn blue jeans. They fit well enough, sitting low on his lips, but at her slight sweep of her tongue over her lips, he wanted a belt to pull them up.  And he wished he had brought a hooded sweatshirt instead of the fitted T-shirt.  Loose enough to hide the details of the corset, it was still tight enough to give her a too-decent sense of his faint curves.

“Nice, very nice.  We could actually pull this off,” she grinned, eyeing his thighs.

“I doubt that,” he said, walking as casual as he could under a lewd stare.

“You’ve got a nice body, good muscle tone, overall shape.”

“In case you’re not aware, I don’t dance.  I’m not quite sure I actually can.”

She grimaced. “That is such utter bullshit, it’s not even funny.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be, and it’s not bullshit.”

“Oh yes it is, hun.  It’s not that you can’t dance.  _Everyone_ can dance.  There are just some dances that you can’t do.”

Trowa frowned.  “I don’t—”

“Everyone can at least one dance, regardless of who you are, what’s wrong with you, whatever.  The thing is, no one can do _every_ dance.  Take me for example.  I can salsa, mambo, tango.  I can do jazz, hip hop, pop-n-lock.  If I really try, I can even ballroom and do ballet.  But I cannot do Irish step dancing.  Scottish neither.  I can’t clog, I can’t break dance.  I mean I know the steps.  I see how they work.  I just can’t make my body do them.  Okay, I also can’t square or line dance, but that’s because I cannot stand country music.”  Lena paused to let herself shudder.  “But you see?  There are dances I can do and dances I can’t.  And it’s the same with everyone.”

“I see.”

“Everyone can do something.  I mean, even handicapped people can dance.  You ever see a person in a wheelchair dance?  It’s pretty cool.  So don’t give me that crap.  You can dance.  We just have to figure out what you can do”

 _I don’t think I can do anything, and I’m not sure I want to._ Considering it was his job, however, Trowa would at least put in an honest attempt.

“Now let’s see.  With your body type, I bet you’d be a great ballet dancer.  But we don’t have that kind of time, and that’s hardly what they’re going to want to see.  No, let’s stick with modern stuff, hip hop, pop-n-lock, maybe cover a little lap dancing.”

“No.”

“Okay, okay no lap dancing.  Yeesh, I think the temp just dropped.”  She sneered.  “We’ll start with the basics.  Well the basic basics, and go from there.”  Lena, walking over to the stereo, waved him towards the center of the room.  She turned the music up.  Trowa swore he could hear the mirrors vibrating with the too heavy, too loud beat.  But she didn’t seem to notice as she walked in front of him.  “Now repeat after me and we’ll see how you do.  Who knows?  We might get the basics down before quitting time.”

It was official: he really didn’t like that smile.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trowa prepares for his first assignment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editing these chapters takes forever. That is all.

“You’re home early.”  Quatre said as he pulled off his winter coat and hung it on the rack.  Trowa, biting back a yawn, looked back at him through the barely lit house.  He had only gotten home five minutes before, and had just taken off his own coat and shoes while turning on a few lights when Quatre came in. 

“Not really.”

“Well, you’re earlier than usual,” he said with a smile.  Setting his keys on the small table by the door, Quatre toed off his shoes.  He walked towards him, a look of worry crossing his face with every step.  “Are you alright?  You look really tired.” 

 _So much for hiding it_. “I’m alright.”

Actually, he was exhausted.  If Duo thought Une was a slave driver, then he should pray he never had to work with Lena.  The woman loved dancing with a fervor he had only seen before in religious fanatics, and she handled mistakes with all the elegance of a junk yard dog with an intruder’s scent.  He put one limb out of place, he slid his foot one inch too far, and she was on him.  Usually verbally, occasionally physically, twisting him around into the “proper step,” making him hold it onto while she lectured and then forcing him to repeat it at least twice.

The worst part?  He was starting to appreciate it.

Dancing wasn’t all that different from acrobatics, he found.  The muscles used were often the same.  And because he prided himself on his dexterity and skill when it came to flips, cartwheels, and general contortions, he found himself getting increasingly frustrated with himself when he missed a step, or worse tripped himself.  By the end of the day, he had stopped embarrassing himself.  Lena had even said he was the fastest study she had ever seen, apart from herself.

He had just exhausted himself doing it.

Quatre smiled a bit.  “Hard day?”

“No worse than usual.  I’m sure yours was worse.”

Quatre gave him an odd, almost mischievous smile as he headed towards the kitchen.  “I don’t know.  I wasn’t the one dancing all day.”

 _I’ll kill him._ “Heero called you.”

“Duo actually.”  he answered.  _I’ll kill him slowly._   “He wanted to tell me that he and Heero were going to be later than usual and that I shouldn’t worry about making them anything to eat.  I admit, I was curious and asked him why.  He said he and Heero were working on an important operation.  And that you had been selected as the undercover operative for it.”

Trowa watched him as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of juice.  “And?”

“And what?”  Trowa sighed and followed him to the kitchen, biting back a wince as he legs protested against the use of already sore muscles.

“And what did he say about it?  He said something, he always does.”

Quatre smiled a bit as he poured himself a drink.  He took down a second glass for him.  “He said you were going as, well--”

“You can say it.  I’m going as a woman.”

“Yes.  That.”

"How hard did he laugh?”

“He didn’t laugh!”  Quatre defended.  Trowa watched him, taking the glass when offered with nothing except an arch of an eyebrow.  Quatre caved under the scrutiny.  “Much.”

Trowa sighed and took a sip.  Quatre hopped up onto the counter before starting to nurse his. 

“It’s only one night, right?  No big deal.” 

“No.  No big deal.  I can handle one night, if Duo’s smart enough not to chuckle at my face.  And it’s not like I have much of a choice in the matter.  It’s my job.”

“Do you think you’ll like it better?”  Trowa looked at him over the rim of the glass.  Like what, exactly?  Being a girl?  Dressing in a skirt and dancing in front of strangers?  Acknowledging body parts he wished didn’t exist?  His fingers tightened.  Thankfully, the cup was plastic, not glass.  “Being back in the field.  Is it better than sitting at a desk all day?”

Trowa loosened his fingers “I won’t know until it’s done.”

“True.”  Trowa nodded, Quatre returned the gesture, and they drank in silence.  Trowa frowned a little at his cup.  There was something funny about it all.  Uncomfortable and comfortable at once.  Dancing was enjoyable, talking to Quatre about work even more so, but it came to pass in the worst possible way, with terrible risks he had not been willing to make. 

Quatre hopped off the counter suddenly.  “What about pizza?” 

“What about it?”

“It’s going to be me and you for dinner tonight, and I really don’t feel like cooking.  So pizza.  We can share it.”

“Can we?”

“I swear, I won’t order pepperoni or sausage this time.”  Trowa shrugged, sipping his juice.  “Come on, it’ll be fun.  Just me and you.  We can talk, or play cards or something.  Please?”

It wasn’t often that they got to do anything by themselves.  Wasting an opportunity would be a shame.  “Pizza sounds good.”

“Great!  Go change into something comfortable and I’ll call for pizza.  Is there anything you want, besides no pepperoni or sausage?”

“No ham either, please.  Anything else is fine.”

Quatre nodded and waved him away as he swept up the phone.  Trowa, who had obviously forgotten how oddly excited Quatre got over pizza, shook his head.  He picked up the duffle bag from where he’d dropped it by the couch before heading to his room.  Trowa shut the door behind him, flicked on the overhead light, and tossed the duffle bag on the bed.  His shoulder screamed at the move.  Trowa didn’t even remember using _those_ muscles.

Rubbing the hard knot in his shoulder, Trowa awkwardly opened the bag.  He had changed before leaving, partly because street wear was against regulations and didn’t want to suffer complaints, and partly because he didn’t want anyone to see him quite that sweaty.  The jeans were all right; the shirt was soaked.  He’d have to wash them, or tear his room apart looking for something else.  He had time, as long as he got them in the dryer before bed.  Trowa left them on top of the duffle bag so he wouldn’t forget and undressed.  His dress shirt went on top of the laundry pile.  The dress pants could get one more wear, so he folded them and set them aside.  Trowa rolled his shoulders and rotated his neck and ankles as he found “comfortable” clothes. 

Trowa came out in a soft turtle and jeans, quietly heading down to the basement to run laundry before heading back to the living room.

Quatre was on the couch, lounging back in a pair of pajamas that were just too big for him.  He kept pulling at the neck of his shirt and it kept sliding down one shoulder.  He leaned his head back on the leather as Trowa approached.  He smiled and patted the spot next to him. 

“They said twenty minutes,” he said as Trowa sat down. “And that was almost ten minutes ago.  So it should be here soon.”

“Alright.”

“And I got extra cheese on it.  Double checked the order too.”

“Sounds fine.”

“And I found the deck of cards, so we can play something until it gets here.”

“If you like.”

“And then we can get shit-faced drunk and have kinky sex on my leather couch.”

Trowa turned so fast he thought he pulled something in his neck.

“Just making sure you’re paying attention,” Quatre said as he reached over to him loosen the locked muscle. 

“Not funny.”

“I thought it was.  What do you want to drink?”

“Anything’s fine,” he muttered as Quatre padded towards the kitchen.  Trowa settled back into the couch, crossing his arms and pressing them hard against his chest until his ribs ached.  He thought he was better than this.  He thought he was over this.  He had made himself be over it, because there was no way.  Quatre was a friend.  A best friend.  A brother, and he would never, ever look at him that way.  Not now, and certainly not if he really knew.  _Quatre wasn’t serious.  Quatre was never serious.  So stop wishing, and stop blushing, damn it._

Trowa managed to unlock the death grip he had on himself, and at least look mildly relaxed, when Quatre came back with two glasses.  “Root beer, always a classic.”

"Thanks.”

“There were a couple of beers, and beer’s great with pizza, but I know you’re not much of a drinker.”

“And those are Duo’s anyway.”

“That too.”

Quatre handed him a glass before setting his down on the coffee table and flopping down next to him.  He swept up a deck of cards from the corner of the table and started shuffling them.  Trowa watched him over the rim of his glass.

“What do you want to play?”

“I’m not that familiar with card games.”  He honestly preferred chess, even if Duo beat him six out of ten times.

“Most of them are really easy.  There’s War, that super easy, but it’s long.  And I think you’re a little too smart for Go Fish.  A lot of games need more players though, like poker and black jack.  We could always play Spit."

“Spit?”  He asked.  He wondered if it was a requirement that card game names had to be dumb, confusing, or in this case, rather gross.

“Okay we split the deck in half and set up five piles each like we would in solitaire.  Just five, not seven.  All the rest stay in a pile.  We take the top card from the pile, flip it over.  Say it’s a three.  You can go up, three, four, five, or down, three, two, ace, king.  But it has to be in order.”

“And if you can’t put anything.”

“Well if you can’t, you just sit there and watch me throw down cards,” he said smiling.  “If we both can’t, then we draw a new card.”

“And what happens when you’re out of cards and I’m not?”

“I hit the smaller pile and you scowl at me because I was faster than you.”

“You’re not faster than me.”

“You’ve never played this game.  I grew up with it.  Want to try?”

“Sure.”

Quatre grinned.  He leaned forward and shuffled the deck expertly.  Trowa slid off the couch and sat down on the floor on the other side of the table.  Quatre split the deck.  They counted, and Trowa handed over two cards.

“Okay, now we set them up.”  Trowa copied the layout of the cards.  “And now we play.”

It took less than ten minutes for Quatre, and Trowa, to learn that Trowa was surprisingly good at this game.

“Remind me never to play with you again.”  Quatre said, pouting at his large pile of cards.  Trowa shrugged and lined up his last three.  Quatre squared his shoulders as he leaned over the table for the obviously final round.

The doorbell rang.

“Game called on account of food,” he said, tossing down the card he had pulled as he got up.  Trowa shook his head.  He swept up the cards and set them off to the corner. 

Quatre grabbed napkins and paper plates before setting the box down in the empty space.  “Oh that smells good.  Do you want one slice or two?”

“Two.” he said.  Quatre handed him the plate before sinking into the couch with his pizza.  “We seriously need to do this more often.”

Just as long as every single time didn’t start with teasing about sex.  Trowa leaned back against the couch and took a bite.Half a pizza later, Quatre settled down on the couch, nibbling on crust as they watched the news.  Trowa leaned back against the leather, one knee bent, balancing a half-empty glass on it with his fingers.  Quatre had gotten tired of being beaten at the various card games he taught Trowa and suggested TV instead.  Trowa only rubbed winning in Duo’s face, so he had agreed.  There wasn't much on, however, on a Tuesday night.  Nothing interesting to them anyway.  So they opted for news, watching the silly give way to the serious as the hour-long opinion shows gave way to actual news,

“The keynote speech, delivered by Ambassador Fahd Kader, was met with unprecedented enthusiasm—” an anchorwoman gushed.  Quatre let out a hiss of air that almost sounded like a swear before grabbing the remote and muting her. 

“Fahd Kader.”  he muttered, sinking back down.  Quatre worried at the end of the crust as he watch silent clips of the speech he made.

Trowa knew Quatre saw the man with some sort of regularity.  Kader often met with Relena, or at least her office, and Quatre was either present as an advisor, or occasionally sent in her stead.  Trowa knew that he didn’t relish  these meetings, but he hadn’t expected that level of distaste.

“Indeed.  What do you think of him?”  He asked after a moment of silent watching. 

“I admit he’s interesting.  A snake, but interesting.”

“Interesting how?”

Quatre frowned as he thought about the right words.  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an accomplished actor.”

It couldn’t be coincidence that Une had used the exact same phrase.  “What do you mean?”

It took Quatre awhile to answer.  He watched the clips, interrupted by the woman’s silent commentary, with a look nothing short of loathing. He folded his hands over his chest, tapping his fingers sullenly.  It was a highly unusual reaction, and Trowa almost felt guilty for asking him. 

“Male, middle-Eastern royalty is full of actors.  It has to be, or they would never get much support from more ‘civilized’ societies.  But Kader takes it to a whole new level.  I can’t really explain it, though.  He looks so sincere.  He has such control over his expression and his voice, it’s almost impossible to tell, but there are these moments.  These seconds where he almost seems to slip.  And then it comes into his eyes, and his smile, and his voice.  This sneering, arrogance.  And you can just tell his laughing at everyone, because he knows that there’s only one person in a thousand that sees him for what he is, and they can’t do anything about it.”

Trowa said nothing, watching the end of the report while considering Quatre’s explanation.  There was something, he would admit.  An arrogance, less than momentary, that went much deeper than all the candid photographs he had seen in the meeting had suggested.  He gloated too heavily with his eyes for a single second, smiled with a particular predatory grin between syllables.  And because it was quick, no one except the very skilled (or a former pilot) ever noticed.  _He mocks them and no one realizes it.  He’s a threat and they cheer for him.  How much damage does we risk with a man like him in this time of peace?_

“Quatre, what do you—”  Trowa had leaned his head back as he spoke.  He stared, and then sighed and shook his head.  Reaching over, he turned off the television and gathered up the dishes and remains as quietly as possible.  He padded silently to the kitchen, threw out the plates and pizza box, wrapped the leftover slices as quietly as he could, and stored them in the refrigerator.  He left the cups in the sink.  The water might be too much.  He flicked off the kitchen light and most of the living room, leaving just enough to clean up the cards and let Duo and Heero walk around without tripping. 

Quatre made a soft, mewling sound as Trowa moved silently around him, shifting whenever his shadow accidentally fell over him.  Quatre slept light, like the rest of them, and was probably in dire need of sleep.  So Trowa tried to be as careful as possible when he took a blanket from the closet and draped it over him.  Trowa oved it carefully to cover him, watching for signs of wakefulness.  He was leaning over him, tucking the edges around his shoulders, when Quatre turned.  Trowa froze, feeling Quatre’s soft breath against his hand.  He was close enough that he could feel the heat of Quatre’s cheeks.  Close enough to touch them, if he dared.  Balancing himself over Quatrr, he watched his sleeping face, not even daring to breathe.  _Don’t wake him, don’t wake, don’t ruin this._   He could lean down.  It would be so easy.  He could finally taste something he had thought about, had wanted, but never thought he could have. 

Trowa pulled back.  He almost stumbled over the coffee table and bit his tongue to keep from hissing in pain.  Quatre muttered but only turned over and nuzzled into the leather.  Trowa hurried around the couch and to his bedroom.  He looked back only once, and watched Quatre’s quilt-covered shoulder.  He gripped the doorframe., grinding his teeth.  And then he heard a car in the driveway.  One of the doors slammed.  Quatre’s shoulder disappeared as he shifted back onto his back, and Trowa slipped into his bedroom before the front door opened.

He leaned back against the door and listened to the muttered conversations.  Duo’s question, Heero’s hiss, Quatre’s murmuring and then the quiet juggling of getting their tired friend upstairs to bed.  No one came near his room.

Trowa sank down against the door and realized that he was probably not going to sleep much tonight. 

*-----*-----*

“Alright, let’s take a break,” Lena said.

Trowa had been working with her for days already, so he knew when she said “break,” she meant lunch break.  Not that he was complaining.  His legs and feet were killing him, which on top of being exhausted meant that not falling flat on his face had been getting a little hard.  If he sat down, even for fifteen minutes, he’d have a chance to do some breathing and recharge. 

If Lena didn’t talk his ear off, at least.

Lena was an exhausting human being.  Much worse than Duo on a caffeine high.  She worked his body hard and his brain even harder, bombarding him with criticisms when they practiced and anecdotes when they didn’t.  Usually, she didn’t need him to say anything but occasionally, she wanted an answer or an opinion.  Which meant that Trowa had to pay attention.  And since the topics that required some response from him had absolutely no consistency, he paid attention to everything.  It made his head hurt.

The positive side, of course, was that by being so tired, he hadn’t actually been dreaming, and that was a nice change.  And he was learning to dance, too.

Trowa wiped some sweat from his forehead.  He glanced at his watch as he did; the room lacked a clock.  He almost stared.  It was thirty minutes before their usual lunch.  Maybe that meant he could sit for a bit longer.  He didn’t keep his hopes up.   Trowa dug his sandwich, salad, and tea out of his duffle bag (he was not in the mood to repeat Lena’s first-day explosion, where she interpreted his “going for lunch” as “going to buy a hamburger” and had been bringing sandwiches and salads from home.  The salads weren't as good.) and sat down beside her.  Lena leaned over and turned down the music before opening her usual tupperware full of sushi.

“You’re doing really well, by the way,” she said.  This coming from the same woman who had threaten to break his ankle not even an hour ago if it didn’t get that damn turn right.  “Much faster than anybody else I’ve taught.”  Trowa imagined they hadn’t lasted through many lessons.  “By the way,” she said, leaning over to exchange two of her rolls for two blocks of his tofu.  Trowa allowed her; he didn’t mind the sushi, and had already figured out telling her to ask first was not going to work.  “We’re going to start working on your routine after lunch.  We’ve only got a couple more days.”

“Alright.”  

“Don’t worry about it,” she said.  _Who said I’m worried?_   “You’ve mastered the basics pretty damn well for someone whose never danced before.  Little more work and we’ll have a great routine for you.”  Lena paused.  She leaned back on her chair as she nibbled on a roll.  “What should we do.  I bet you’d do great with Indian style.  Belly dancing maybe.  Throw in a little pop-n-lock, yeah that’s got potential.”

He bit savagely into his sandwich

“Need to think about what you’ll be wearing too.”

“Great,” he muttered, stabbing at his salad.  He had almost forgotten about that.  Lena jabbed him in the arm with her chopsticks.

“Don’t give me that attitude.  I’m helping Miss Une out by getting you ready for this little mission of theirs.  And getting you ready includes making sure you look good as well as move good.”

“Please stop stabbing me with those.”

“Drop the attitude and maybe I will.”

“I don’t have an attitude to drop.”

“Do so, honey,” she shot back.  Trowa sighed and took a bite of his sandwich to keep himself in check. “That’s better.” 

They ate in silence for a moment.  “Lena,” Trowa started, looking down at his sandwich.  There had been something that had been bothering him for most of the week, and since they only had a few days left.  “Answer something for me.”  

"We'll see.  What's up?"

“I’m assuming you know about this club.”

“Wow, and here Une said you were the smart one.”  Trowa frowned.  “Yeah, I ‘know’ about.  I better, consider I work there.”

“You work as an erotic dancer.” 

“It’s a living, and a pretty good one, actually.” 

He wasn’t actually surprised; it actually explained a lot.  “No doubt, but how did it become yours?”  He didn’t actually care, but he did find himself rather curious.

“The usual.  Drugs, gambling.  There were probably some prostitutes involved somewhere.”

“I’m not seeing how this is ‘usual’.”

Lena smiled.  “My mom skipped out on us when I was, I don’t know, six or something.  And dad dealt with it the way most deadbeats do: squandering everything on bad habits.  And then when he died, my brother took it up, because that’s apparently what dumb boys do.  I had already run off by then, to dance school on a scholarship.  Well my brother got himself into some very serious debt with some very serious people, and thought that taking out a very serious loan with other very serious people was the way to solve it.   And me, being the dumb fuck that I was at eighteen, agreed to cosign for it.  So when he decided to cut his loses and run with it, I got the late-night door bashing.”

Trowa arched an eyebrow.  He failed to see how she managed to get out of that and still be sitting her telling him about it.

“Thankfully, the shark thought that I was cute, felt a little bad for me because I was sobbing and cursing my shithead of a brother to an early grave, and gave me some choices.  I could work for him.  He had a couple of brothels that needed younger merchandise.  Or I could go help out his friend at a club and give him my paycheck for the next six years.  I’m sure you can guess which job I took.”

“Naturally.”

“I mean, I had to audition, of course, but I was used to that.  And then I had to answer all these weird questions about what I would do if anyone interrogated me about the club’s location or clients or something.  But the manager liked my style, liked my attitude.  So I got a job.  And at least he was cute, so sucking him off and rolling over for him wasn’t that big of a deal.  You know if you chew your food, you won’t choke on it.”

Trowa took a long swallow of his tea to dislodge the large bite of sandwich he had choked on.  He stared at her, red faced and panting slightly.  She popped a sushi into her mouth.

“You slept with him?”

“Yeah, but I’ve slept with a lot of people.”

“Why?”

“Because I enjoy it, duh.”

“No, why him?”

“Because I’d rather be dancing on a stage than be dancing in some loser’s bed.  Besides, it’s a good job for what it is.  I don’t do anything I don’t want to.  I do what I like: dance all night and get paid for it.  And I mean sure, the guys there are totally perverted and want nothing better than to nail me in an alley, but they can’t.  I have been there long enough, and he respects me enough, that I get to choose when and where I put out, and I don’t for men.”

“Except the manager.”

“Well yeah but you get my point.”

Trowa wondered what she expected him to say, if anything.  Was she expecting condemnation, or support?  It was her life, and he was very glad he didn’t have to live it.  But if she wanted to dance around half naked every day, if she enjoyed it, then who was he to say anything?  Although he just couldn’t see how it was at all enjoyable.

But there were a lot of things he couldn’t understand.

“Come on, don’t make that face.”  Lena said.  Trowa looked at her.  “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s a good job.  Especially for someone like me.  No degree, no connections, no skills really.  And the girls are all tight with each other, and the pay’s pretty sweet.  And even if it is a sleazy place, it’s a high class sleazy place with a shit load of rules and regulations to protect us, not them.”  She paused.  “Like the ‘eye candy’ policy.”

“The ‘eye candy’ policy?”

“Basically, it’s super strict protection for temp dancers, popular ones, traumatized ones, young one—although he’s really good about keeping everyone overage so the sex police don’t come knocking.  But anyway,.  You can get this policy.  And what it does is it limits the customers to ‘look, don’t touch.’  Guys can look at the girl all they want, salivate to her, jack off to her, fantasize about doing her any way their perverted hearts desire, but they can’t touch her.  At all.  Period.  They so much as breathe on her wrong, and the security throws them out on their fat asses faster than you could write up check.  And if you break eye candy, you’re out and you don’t come back.”

“Well, that’s impressive,” he admitted.

“Yeah it is.  And it’s hard to get into the club in the first place.  Invitation only, if you have the rep or the connection to snag one, and they can revoke it at any time.  No credit card, cash only.  No names.  You have to bring your booze.  We got plenty of glasses.  So if you fuck up and they kick you out, you have a better chance of surviving a ticking grenade in your pocket than getting back in.”

“Interesting.”

“Very tight, very strict.  Kind of has to be though, or else there are raids.”

“Raided often?”

“More than you’d think with all the precautions.  But we’ve got a system and it works pretty well. Usually, we get word that someone’s cracking down on us.  Most often it’s the Feds.  So manager packs everything and ‘fires’ all the employs.  Which is basically time off with pay.  And then for a couple of weeks, we all sit at home and decompress and watch TV until he calls us back.  By then, we’ve got a new venue, a couple of new workers, and maybe one less customer if someone happened to have squealed.

“Now that I think about it,” she said, looking up at the ceiling.  “That last raid was how I got to meet her.”

“Meet who?”

“Miss Une, genius.”

The line had the desired effect; Trowa lowered his sandwich.

“I’ve only been caught in two raids throughout my whole career.   The first one was a couple years ago when the feds caught us by surprise.  I had decided to stick to help dismantle the place, and they got the jump on us.  I was the only one who managed to get my ass caught, and they were going to charge me with the whole shebang.  Until I reminded them that if they charged me, they wouldn’t get anything on the guys work there.  So then, they wanted me to play snitch for them, and I don’t play that game.  But I wasn’t keen on going jail so I played along and feed them some information.  Mostly about guys we all wanted to be rid of.  I think I ratted out three guys before the second raid, which was led by your lovely group."

“I’m sure it was nothing personal.”

“It never is. But you know what happened?  I got arrested and the Feds dropped me.  Denied my name, denied anything I ever gave them.  Douchebags,” she spat, snapping her chopsticks in half before hurling them into her bag.  “Anyway, so there I was, totally abandoned, sitting in some little holding cell you guys got in this building, wondering how bad is women’s prison, when Miss Une walks in.  No hello.  No scare talk.  Walks straight up to me and goes ‘how much do you know about so and so,’ so and so being one of our many unpopular customers.   I gave her a little of this, a little of that, because I didn't want to get screwed over again and I didn't want her to chuck my ass in jail either.  And you know what she asks?"

“No.”

“She asks if I could get a guy in there as a waiter., she laughed, shaking her head.  “She wanted an in for some other mission.  Not too different from this one, but less dangerous since it wasn’t as weird a guy.  I got her the in, they got their guy, and I didn’t have to do nothing except suggest some temporary ‘help.’  It all worked out so well that she said she’d call me whenever she needed to get someone in.”

“Someone like me.”

“Someone like you, although I hadn’t thought she’d need a dancer.  That’s a little bit harder but I’ve got a way to get you in.”

“That is?”

She grinned.  “You’ll be standing in for one of the girls who’s unfortunately out sick that night.”

“Who’s going to be sick?”

“Me.”

“You.”

“Me.  I’ll call in the day before, or hell even a couple hours.  Then they’ll have to take you.  And I’ll whine and I’ll beg and I’ll tell them you’re an old friend and you’re doing this as a favor for me.”

“And that’ll work?”

She didn’t hear him.  “And they’ll definitely put you on eye candy when I tell him you’re a mute so you don’t have to worry about gropers blowing your cover.”

“Mute?  I’m not mute.”

“I know you’re not mute, but tour voice isn’t high enough to pass off as a girl and forcing it will just be suspicious.  We’ll just give you a pad of paper.  Plus, being mute means they will be extra cautious and give you a lot of special treatment.” 

Trowa frowned.  He was sure he could pull of a woman’s voice if he absolutely had to.  And the idea of “special treatment” was more of a problem than relief.  The point of his mission was to get close enough to Kader to obtain evidence.  How could he do that if the security was watching his every move to make sure that no one got too “friendly” with him?

Of course, if someone did get too friendly with him, he’d have more problems than just a botched sting.

“That’s not going to defeat the purpose?  You know, the reason why I’m even going in?”

“They’re not going to stop you from moving around and sitting near whoever you need to.  They’re just going to make sure that while you’re on the payroll, no one you don’t want touching you will touch you.  You can shmooze and snoop to your heart’s content.  They’ll just make sure that no one finds out that you are not actually a girl.”

It couldn’t be that simple.  It just couldn’t.  He knew it.

“Alright,” she sighed, tossing her the empty Tupperware into her bag.  “Enough talk, back to work.  Toss out your junk and get off your butt.  We’re going to work out your routine.”  Lena shoved the chair out of the and started rummaging through her impressive collection of CDs.  “Pop-n-lock, belly dance fusion.  That’ll definitely get their attention.”

 _There is no way in hell I am showing off my stomach._   He’d seen those costumes before, and he was not flashing his corset at anyone.  And there was no way he was going through this mission without it.

By the end of the day, Lena had most of the routine worked out, minus a few bits of “flair,” as she called them, and Trowa had most of it committed to memory.  He could do most of it, too.  Lena hadn’t made more than a handful of criticisms, which was a first.

“I think we’re almost done with the hard stuff, man.  Good work,” she said after he came from changing back into his uniform.  “I’ll think of some stuff, belly rolls and all, and we’ll work on it tomorrow.” 

Trowa was almost to the door when she called over her shoulder.

“One more thing,” she said while stuffing CDs into her bag.  “Is that style permanent?”

“Excuse me?”

Lena gestured at his head in the mirror.  “That.  Your hair.  Is it permanent?”

“Of course not.” 

“Great!  Leave it down from now on.”

Trowa nearly dropped his bag.  _She did not just say that.  I’m hallucinating.  The exhaustion is getting to me because she did not just say that.._

“What?”  he asked, somehow managing to keep the panic out of his voice. 

“You have got to be kidding me,” she sighed.  Lena turned, hands on her hips.  “This is not that extreme of a request, honey.  Obviously, you spend some time every morning getting your hair into that fucked up style.”  Fucked up style?  At least his hair was one color, and a natural one at that.  “And I’m sure you’re attached to but, for the sake of the mission, and I’m sure you’ll do just about anything for the mission, keep the glue in the jarr.  Because I promise you, that is way too conspicuous to get away with.”

“For the sake of the mission?”

“For the sake of the mission.”  Lena grinned. 

Trowa grit his teeth.  “Fine.”

“Don’t pout.  It’s only going to be for a couple of days,” she said, turning back to her things.  Trowa turned on his heel, but not fast enough.  “ ‘Sides, we need to coordinate your costume and hair is an absolute must.”

Trowa shuddered.  _Wonderful._

*-----*------* 

It was official: he was never forgiving Lena for this.  Or Une.  Never. 

Trowa knew he was being ridiculous.  Hair was nothing to lose sleep over—and he had lost sleep over it.  After a short dinner made awkward by his unexplained irritation and a shower that did nothing to soothe his nerves, Trowa had tossed and turned until well after midnight, dropped into a few hours of nightmares, and woken drenched in sweat three hours before dawn.  At six o’clock, he had already been sitting on his bed, fully dressed, for an hour, glaring at his reflection.

Now it was almost seven, which would make it two hours of glaring.

Trowa was leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, as he sneered at his reflection.  At the bared right side of his face, pristine as the left but so bizarre to him that it seemed almost scarred.  And as he frowned, a lock of hair tumbled forward and tickled his mouth.  Again.

Rising, he walked over to the dresser and snatched up his brush.  It didn’t catch at all as Trowa yanked it through his hair.  He had already brushed it six times, somehow convinced that it would somehow help him get used to it brushing against his shoulders and neck.  It didn’t.  Trowa put the brush down, dipping his head just enough to bring all the hair forward.  He snarled and pushed it back, running his hands over it to find some kind of tolerable style.  _Why can’t it just stay still?_   

Trowa glanced at his clock.  He watched the digital display until two minutes had gone by before sighing.  He couldn’t put it off any longer, not unless he wanted to be late.  Late and without breakfast.  He just needed to resign himself.  People were going to notice.  That was natural.  He was going to be noticed at work, he was going to be noticed at the table, and if he didn’t kick himself out of his room now, Duo was going to do it for him when he came knocking, and that would just make it worse. 

People would notice.  They would stare.  But it was just hair, it wasn’t a big deal.

Except that it was.

He couldn’t exactly explain it, except that it was something uniquely his.  Unique, his, and not such a disaster of the natural order that it made him cringe to look at himself.  It gave him something to focus on when he wanted to pull away.  It gave him some place to retreat to without looking like he was retreating.  It made him feel safe.

Which was pathetic. _Maybe I actually need this._

Sighing, Trowa slipped out his room, duffle bag in hand.  He heard the familiar sounds of Quatre hurrying around in the kitchen.  Trowa left his bag by his chair before heading towards him.

Quatre heard him, pulling a pan off the stove as he turned.  "Good morning, Trowa.  Did you sleep--"

There was a gasp and then a clatter.  Quatre had lost his grip on his pancakes.  Trowa winced as the pan rattled against the floor.  Quatre didn’t seem to notice the noise, or pancakes and leftover butter splattered on the floor. 

Heero and Duo did.

“Quatre, are you okay?  I heard something, holy shit!”

If Trowa wasn’t already furious, he might have found Quatre’s open mouth stare and Heero and Duo’s tripping through the doorway, wearing equally surprised expressions very amusing.  He didn’t.  He glared at them in turn, saving Duo for last.

“Not.  A.  Word,” he spat.  Turning, Trowa snatched a dishtowel from the counter, picked up the hot pan with it, and thrust it into Quatre’s hands. 

“But Trowa.  What did you do?” Duo asked as Trowa walked to his spot and sat down.  Trowa didn’t answer, staring down at the table. Duo followed him, lingering behind his chair.  He examined Trowa with a critical eye before running his fingers over the back of Trowa’s head.  He barely managed to get his fingers out of the way before Trowa grabbed at them. 

Quatre and Heero exchanged looks before Quatre hurried the pan to the sink and got towels to clean up the mess. 

“Seriously, man, what did you do to your hair?”

“Nothing, obviously.”  He bit out.

“Trowa, it’s soft.  It’s never soft.”

“If you touch my hair one more time—”

“And it’s normal looking.  Like anyone would wear this.”

“Are you not fond of your fingers, because I will break them if you keep touching me.”

“What the hell did you do, man?”

“I left it down, obviously.” 

“But why?”  Duo asked. 

Trowa pinched the bridge of his nose.  _I will not hit him, I will not hit him._ “I was told to.” 

“For the mission.” Heero said, finally breaking the hard stare he had been giving him with a barely perceptible tilt of his head.  Trowa nodded.  Heero nodded as well, slowly.  “I see.  It’s…different.”

“That’s an understatement man.”

Quatre sat back and smiled a bit.  “Well, it’s only until after the mission right?  So it’ll be over and down with in a couple days and then it’ll go back to normal.  Although I kind of like it like this.”

Trowa was suddenly glad he was too angry and embarrassed to blush.

“We should get breakfast, before we’re late,” he muttered.

“Oh, of course!  Only,” Quatre trailed off, looking at his batter splattered dishtowel.  “Is cereal okay with everyone this morning?”

“Sounds like the perfect meal on a day full of changes,” Duo chuckled.  Trowa glared at him.  “Not that we don’t love your pancakes, even though you really don’t have to cook every day but you do.”

“Sit down, Duo.  I’ll get the bowls,” Quatre sighed. 

Breakfast was rushed, considering how much time was lost between dropping the pancakes and talking about his hair.  Quatre finished his cereal before he realized that if he didn’t leave, and make every green light, he was going to be late for one of his many very important meetings.  For once Duo didn’t say anything, although he did shake his head.  They left the bowls in the sink to be washed later. 

Trowa’s mood didn’t improve once he got to the office.  He encountered only a few stares in the parking lot, and one person running into the wall outside the stairwell as they walked and stared at the same time.  Duo found all of it very funny.  Wufei and Zechs were in the parking garage as well when they pulled in.  They managed to get over their surprise quickly, greeting him relatively normally, apart from some prolonged looks.

The worst, though was Lena.

She greeted him with a whistle and a clap.  “Perfect”  she cried when he entered.  She skipped over to him and circled him excitedly.  “That’s a great length for you.  I was a little worried it would look, like, weird.  Awkward length and layering and all but it’s awesome.  And it’ll go perfect with the outfit I whipped up last night.”

“Outfit?” he asked, watching her skip back to her bag.

“Finished it this morning.  It’s amazing what you can do when you give up sleep.”

Well at least he wasn’t the only one up all night.  “You didn’t sleep?" 

Lena shrugged.  “I had to work the graveyard shift and by the end of it, I was pretty hyped up on caffeine.  This only took me six hours or so.  Pretty simple.”

“Six hours is simple?”

“If you know what you’re doing.”

Trowa could hardly sew a small button on in fifteen minutes, so he was suitably impressed. 

“You’ll try it on later.  Right now, I want to run through the routine with you one more, and then you’ll do it alone.”  Nodding, Trowa followed her to the center of the room after she started the stereo.  Lena kept the beat with her fingers on her hip, as she always did.  “From the top.  Repeat after me.”  Trowa watched her reflection in the mirror, waiting for that one beat to start them off.

For once, she didn’t chastise him for being a split second late, becase he wasn’t. 

In fact, Lena didn’t say anything at all.  After a while, Trowa barely noticed her beside him.  He certainly didn’t noticed when she stopped to watch him.  He was too focused on the steps he had labored over all week to see the grin spreading across her face as she leaned against the glass.  Trowa didn’t notice her until the song ended and he couldn’t make another step, because there was nothing else to do. 

“Excellent.  Now do it again,” she ordered.  He nodded and stepped back to center.  Lena, pulling up a chair, reset the music and watched him, leaning her chin on the back of the chair.  He spun into the first step and fell into the rhythm.  “Keep the beat, keep the attitude.  Good, good.  Feel the music in your steps.  It should feel like the music is in your blood, the beat is in your pulse.  Dancing should become you, an extension of yourself.”

She was right about that.

Trowa ran through the routine two more times before Lena stopped him again.  Smiling, she waved him over.  It was a little different than her “I’m happy you’re doing well” smile but not quite as dangerous as her “I’m going to do something you’ll hate because I can” smile.  He walked over cautiously.  She patted the chair next to her.  Once he had sat down, Lena pulled a box from her bag and set it in his lap. 

A shoebox, for that matter.

“I think you’re just about ready to perform in front of those perverts.  There’s just one more thing to do before we get into wardrobe.”  Lena said. 

Trowa had a sinking suspicion he already knew what that one thing was.  He stared down at the black cardboard box for a moment before lifting the lid slowly. 

“I’m pretty sure you’re the same size as a friend of mine.”

“These are high heels, Lena.”

“You didn’t think you’d be dancing in sneakers, did you?  Not there you’re not anyway.”

“No one ever mentioned heels.”

“I think everyone figured it was understood.  Now try them on,” she said.  “And before you whine, yes you have no choice.  Now put ‘em on.”

Trowa breathed softly through his nose.  He warned himself not to think it could get any worse.  _Because it is._  He glared at her for a moment before setting the shoes aside and unlacing his sneakers.  He pulled them off, along with his socks which he folded and stuffed inside them, and set them under his chair.  Frowning slightly, he picked up the sandals and looked them over.  It didn’t take him too long to figure out which piece went where to secure them to his feet.

“How they feel?”

“Awkward.”

“Smart ass.  I meant are they too tight?  Too loose?  Cutting off circulation?”  Trowa twisted his ankle one way and then the other, trying to decide whether or not he could wear them for an extended period.  Unfortunately, he could.

“They seem to fit fine,” he muttered.

“Great.  Now stand up and walk around so we can check your balance.”  Lena gave him a push off the chair.  He wobbled slightly to his feet and felt a distinct drop in his natural balance.  “Walk from here to the other side of the room and back.  Heel toe.  It’s easier than it looks, trust me.” 

Trowa looked towards the other side of the room.  It seemed impossible far.  He swallowed before taking a step, realizing he had a much larger margin for error thanks to the thin heel.  His ankles pitched slightly as he walked slowly but he managed to stay upright.  A couple more steps and his ankles stopped wobbling.  Nearly halfway across, he felt he might have the hang of it.  He took a discreet look at his profile in the mirror and almost instantly regretted it.

Lena smiled when he walked all the way back without a single stumble.  “Most guys I know don’t catch on as quick as you did.  Must be the gymnast in you.”  She waved him off.  “Now do the routine again, in those.  Here’s a tip: don’t put your heel down.” 

Dancing in heels was much more challenging, but her advice actually helped.  If Trowa balanced most of his weight on the balls of his feet, he could keep both rhythm and form.  The soles had just enough grip to keep him from feeling like he would slip.  Every spin was perfect, every transition flawless.  Actually, he almost thought that he could everything than when he was wearing sneakers.

He wasn’t the only one.

“I’m impressed Lena.”  Une had waited until the very last bar to speak up.  Trowa nearly slipped, botching the finish.  “I knoew you could teach anyone, but he’s learned a lot really fast.”

“He’s a good student when he isn’t whining.  Attentive, eager, stubborn.  And a perfectionist, almost as bad as I am.” Lena walked over to her, wiped her hand on her pants, and shook Une’s hand.  “What’s up?”

“There’s been a slight change in plans,” Une said, glancing towards Trowa.  He fought down a flush but didn’t manage to squish the hope that she had found a woman to go in his place.  Even if that meant he had wasted a week learning dancing for nothing.

Lena rubbed the back of her neck.  “He’s already got the routine, and I’ve already made the outfit, if you’re planning on changing your spy, Miss Une.  I can’t teach just anyone to dance in under week.  He’s a special case.”

“Don’t worry, Lena.  Trowa’s still going in, but the time’s changed.”

“Wasn’t it like tomorrow or something?”

“It was, but we just got word that Kader’s getting suspicious.  He’s making tonight his last night at the club for a long while and finding a new venue for his deals.  We need to get the information tonight.”

Tonight?  Trowa was going tonight?

“Hey, you know what?  This is totally doable.  Actually, this is perfect,” Lena said.  He and Une looked at each other.  “He can’t say no this way when I call out sick.  He’ll have no other choice but to take Trowa on my word or else he’ll be seriously shorthanded and lose business.”  Nodding to herself, Lena ran back to her bag and started digging through it.  Une watched her, hands on her hips.  Only once did she look him up and down. 

“Nice heels, Trowa.”

Trowa blushed.  He had almost forgot about those.

“Found it,” Lena announced.  She stood up, tossing the small cellphone up once.  “What’s a good sickness? I guess the flu.  It’s been going around lately and easy to contract.”  Muttering to herself, Lena flipped it open.  She bounced on the balls of her feet as it rang.  Lena grinned at them before focusing on the voice at the other end.

If he hadn’t seen her dancing and running around five minutes ago, Trowa would have thought she was seriously ill.  Lena let out of series to very convincing hacking coughs.  “R-Robert?  It’s, it’s Lena.” She faked a loud sneeze.  “Hey, what?…yes I know I sound like shit.  I look like death warmed over, too…  Hey it isn’t funny, man…”  She let out another cough.  “Oh, so you noticed that little cough of mine…Uh huh…Yeah, a funny thing about my shift tonight.  The thing is I, excuse me,” Lena pulled the phone from her ear and hacked as loudly as she could.  “I’m pretty much bedridden.  I can’t come in tonight.”

Judging from the volume and the number of curses he could hear on the other side of the room, “Robert” wasn’t happy.

“Yes I know I’m always headlining this shift… Yes, I know this leaves you shorthanded, but it wasn’t like I wanted to get sick.  Jesus man, you know me.  I hate being stuck in bed, and I hate being cold which is what this 103 fever is giving me… Yes, yes I know I have just fucked you over, or at least you think I have.”

Even faking sick, she had a large grin on her face.  Robert obviously couldn’t tell.

“I know that it’s hard as fuck to find a replacement with the credentials and shit on such short notice, but that’s why I,”  she paused to cough again.  “ugh, sorry.  That’s why I found one for you…  Nah, nah she’s a totally good girl, real tight lipped.  She ought to be, she’s a mute.”  Lena passed Trowa a wink.  “Dude, she knows how to sign and she always carries a notebook with her, don’t worry about communicating…  Where’d I meet her?  We,”  she hacked again.  “Go way back.  Elementary and middle school.  We were in the same dance classes for a while.  We’re good friends and, what?…  No, no, she’s doing this as a favor.  She’s not in trouble.  She’s always been the good one …  Well I helped her out, gave her a place to crash when she was hiding from her ex.  So she owes me, you don’t even have to pay her…  Uh huh…uh huh…  Seriously, Robert, she is on fire.  She’s got a little vanilla in but when she’s on the floor, she is a wild thing.  You will love her.”  Sniffling, Lena nodded her head.  “Uh huh…uh huh…yeah, yeah… got it… Great.  9:00?  She’ll be there.  Her name’s Tracy.  Don’t give her a stage name.  She hates that.  I’m telling you, Robert, the boys will adore her.  Uh huh… she knows about eye candy, I told her this morning… uh huh….uh huh…  Of course I told her to burn and flush the address.  Stop worrying, she won’t fuck you over…  Uh huh…okay.  She’ll be there tonight, on time, I swear.”  Lena sniffled loudly.  “Yeah, lots of sleep and mind rotting T.V.  I’ll get better soon…  Okay, I’ll check in tomorrow, let you know how I feel.  Uh huh…uh huh…okay, talk to you later, boss.”

She grinned tossed it back into the bag.  “Done and done, the boy is in.” 

Une chuckled and shook her head.  “Lena Crawford, you will never cease to astound me.”

“Good thing you decided not to chuck my hot ass in jail, right?” 

“Well now we know they’re expecting him.”

“Totally, and he knows the routine and he can dance in those shoes.  All that’s left is the look and a little last minute practice.”

“Can you get it done?”

“Of course I can.  When’s he leave?”  Lena asked.  Une glanced down at her watch.

“I want the team out by 5:00 pm.” 

“Plenty of time.  We’ll grab lunch and get started.  He’ll be totally ready by the time you come back.  Promise.”

“I’m trusting you, Lena.  You’ve done a great job so far.”  Une smiled at Trowa before turning on her heel and leaving. 

“Okay.  Lunch time.  Let’s make it quick,” she said with a clap to her hand.  Dragging two chairs over, she waved him to sit down.  He did and began reaching for his shoes.  “Hey don’t take those off yet.  You’re going to have to get used to having them on and besides, we need to do alterations and it’s better to have the whole ensemble on.”

Trowa sighed, sitting back and reaching for his sandwich.

He didn’t have much an appetite and only managed to finish about a fourth of his food.  This ended up being fine, since Lena hardly let them have ten minutes for lunch.  She wolfed down her rolls in total silence.  She drained her tea while rooting around in her bag again. 

Trowa tucked them under his arm and headed for the showers.  He stopped when he realized Lena was following him.

“What are you doing?”

“I have to see how it fits and what I need to take it in or let it out.  They’re called ‘alterations.’”  Lena said as if it was perfectly obvious.

He turned slowly. “You are not following me into the _men’s_ showers.”

“Please, it’s not like I’ve never seen it before.  Don’t be such a prude,” she sneered.  Trowa ground his teeth.  There was plenty she had never seen before, and he planned on keeping it that way.

“You. Aren’t. Coming.”

“Okay, okay,” she said, backing up with her hands up.  “Chill.  Just come back here when you’re done then so I can take a look.”

“Fine.” 

Lena turned up the music as he entered the showers, but the thick walls swallowed most of the sound.  Trowa set the clothes on a bench for a moment and glanced across from him.

The mirror had been repaired.  Flawlessly.  Now he hoped that whatever Lena had designed for him wasn’t going to make him break it again.  He’d feel bad for the staff.

Trowa looked over the pieces, taking in the details before trying them on.  He had to admit, Lena was very good with a needle and thread.  That did stop him from finding the design a bit unsettling though.  There was a very large cut starting at the base of the shirt that went up to just beneath his breast bone.  It was part of the design, not a rip, but it posed a very serious problem. 

He couldn’t wear his corset with it. 

Even if the corset was the exact same color of his flesh, which it wasn’t, Trowa had no doubt that everyone would notice the ribbing right away.

A cold shiver slithered up his spine.  His fingers trembled slightly as he slid them down to the hem of his shirt.  Out of habit, Trowa peered over his shoulder.  Door closed.  He pulled the fabric over his head.  Trowa refused to look in the mirror as he removed the corset.  He wrapped it in his shirt, placing his folded pants on top of it.  With his back to the mirror, Trowa laid out the clothes on the bench.  He tilted his head at a third piece he hadn’t noticed before.  It took him a moment to recall what it was.  He felt slightly nauseous.

Sinking onto the bench, Trowa held it in his hands, poking at the padded cups.  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.  He should never have to wear one, never have to even consider it.  _I shouldn’t have the parts for it, either.  But I do._   Lena must have added the extra padding he found, under the assumption that Trowa would “need”.  He tossed it in the trash can. 

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.  But that didn’t matter.  He got the bra on after a couple of attempts.  It was uncomfortable, and not in the familiar way the corset was.

That feeling of discomfort only increased as he dressed.  The soft cloth clung to his skin, lining with his curves.  Trowa couldn’t shake the feeling that he was naked.  _You aren’t.  You’re covered.  You’re fine.  To everyone else, this it’s an illusion._

Lena looked up when she heard his heels.  Her lips pursed and let out a low whistle. 

“Damn, I love a man who looks good in a skirt.  If I was straight, I’d let you fuck me raw,” Lena said in what he assumed was praise.  “Come here and let me look at you better.”  Trowa tried not to look at himself in the mirror as he approached.  He stopped before her and looked at the ceiling as she inspected him.  “Do a slow turn for me?”  Eyes closed, he spun slowly in his spot.  “Fits pretty good.  I’ll take in the back a bit since it’s a little big on you.  And I’ll let out the hem some since your legs are a little longer than I thought.”  She pulled out a small sewing kit.  “Move back slightly and stand still.”

Trowa stepped back.  Lena, crouched on her knees with the needle between her lips, lifted the edge of the skirt and examined the stitches before making small, precise cuts with scissors.  Trowa swallowed; the skirt was pretty tight about his hips and rear.  Not enough to show what he had to hide, but tight enough that the lines of his underwear had shown.  He wished he had left them on anyway.  Lena never lifted the skirt any higher than his shins as she fixed the hems.  He was thankful for that. 

Removing the needle from her mouth, she rocked back on her heels.  “That’s better.  Now for the shirt.  Normally I’d ask you to take it off,” _No way in fucking hell._ “But you seem to have a problem with flashing skin, stay still for a bit longer.”  He took a deep breathe as she wandered behind him.  The fabric across his stomach and chest tightened slightly as Lena pulled it back and altered it to his shape.  He glanced into the ceiling.  These changes seemed to take longer.  His legs were starting to cramp long when Lena slipped out from behind him and put the needle back in the case.

“Looks much better,” she said before pulling over a chair.  She set it down in front of him.  “Park it.”  He sat down on the chair as straight and normally as possible, fighting the urge to cross his legs at the knee.  Lena sat across from him.  She had a silver and black in her lap.  “Now I want you to relax your face.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll mess it up otherwise.  Now hold still.” 

He grabbed her wrist before the makeup brush even made it from the box. 

“I draw the line right here.”

“A, you don’t get a choice in the matter since make up is a must when you do any sort of performance.  And B, I’m just going to extenuate your natural features so stop having a hissy fit.  Now look up towards the ceiling without moving your head and don’t blink.  Don’t worry, I have a very steady hand and will not poke you in the eye.”

He snarled but rolled his eyes up.  He counted ceiling tiles as she worked, trying to ignore the stiff bristle brushing delicately and dangerously near his eyes.  His eyelashes felt unnaturally heavy when she finished.

“Do not blink,” she ordered.  “Just relax.”  A softer brush slide against his cheek bones lightly.  He coughed as powder drifted into his mouth.  “Open your mouth a bit and stop giving me that look.  This isn’t going to kill you.”  Opening his mouth, Trowa stayed still as she moved the lipstick carefully over his lips.  He didn’t bite her fingers, as much as he wanted to.  “Now you close your eyes.  Just lightly, don’t squint.”

Eyes closed, he ignored the new film she brushed across his eyelids.  The discomfort kept increasing. A roll to his hips, naked despite feet of cloth, stomach exposed, legs exposed, an unnatural mask blocking his face, slowly suffocating him.  _One night.  I can do this for one night._

“There.  Done.”  Lena dropped the brushes into the back and snapped it closed.  She leaned her elbows on it to examine her work.  “Very nice, I’d say.  We’ll see what Une says when she gets back.  For now, get up and do it again.”

Trowa had no choice this time, when he rose and went to the center, but to face his reflection.  He bit back a gasp.  He hardly recognized himself.  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to.  The rich red shirt, a color of wine, ended just above his hips.  It clung just enough to pull the cut open and display his flat stomach and naval  It was sleeveless, with thin straps and a low V-cut that extenuated the slender slope of his shoulders.  It flashed no cleavage, merely suggested that it was there.  The black skirt hug his hips, flairing out enough at the top of his thighs to hide him while being tight enough to suggest the lines of his legs. It sported an inverted V, the cut’s vertex barely halfway up his thighs. 

Trowa shivered.  The colors on his face, pale reds and golds, complimented the clothes and his skin perfectly.  Lena was right; it was beautifully subtle, bringing out the angles and fullness of his features.  And with his hair hanging down to just above his shoulders, even he could, for a moment, forget that this was not supposed to happen.  That he was not supposed to fill the bust so naturally.  That he was not supposed to be standing casually in high heels.  He could almost feel right.

Trowa thought he was going to be sick.

“Come on, we don’t have much time.”

Gasping softly, the lump in his throat jumping, Trowa looked at her.  There was a reason for this, he remembered.  A reason to be standing here, to be confronting…this.  He glanced at his reflection once more before, with a hard shake, he focused. 

Trowa danced flawlessly, again and again.  He lost track at fifteen, and by then Une had returned.  She was not alone this time.

“Someone tell me I’m dreaming.”  Trowa stopped when he heard him.  He watched them in the mirror.  _One night, one night, one night._

“Who’s the boys?”  Lena asked as she turned the music down.  Trowa stared resolutely into the empty reflection as Une led them over.

“These are four of the other operatives.”  Une answered.  She gestured to them in turn.  “This is Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Chang Wufei, and Zechs Merquise.  Gentleman, this is Lena Crawford.”

“ ‘Sup, boys.  Pleasure to meet you.”

Duo looked from one woman to the other.  “This is who you got as the dance instructor?”

Une frowned at him.  “Yes, Duo, and she’s done one hell of a job, as I’m sure you can see.”

“Trowa glared at them from the corner of his eye. 

“Well you were right Lena,” Une said.  “He looks perfect.  You did a great job.”

“Not a problem.  He’s all yours now.”

“I owe you for this, Lena.”  .

“No way.  You didn’t chuck my butt in a jail cell.  I’ll be paying that one back for a long time.” Smiling, Lena walked back to her things and shoved them in her bag.  She swung it over her shoulder, lifted the stereo to her shoulder and nodded to them in turn.  “I’ll see myself out.  You know the number if you ever need my services again, Miss Une.”

“At least let me walk you out, or call you a cab.”

“A cab would be nice.”  She said.  “But is it smart to leave these boys alone?”

“They’re good boys, usually.  I think I trust them to behave for ten minutes.”  She answered with a backward glance towards them.  Frowning at them warningly, Une walked Lena from the room, taking the stereo from her as they reached the door. 

The silence dragged.  Trowa continued to stare at the mirror, avoiding their looks with the utmost effort.  He breathed deeply through his nose, feeling his control slipping even as he clung to it. 

Duo cleared his throat.  “Well—“

Trowa turned on him, teeth bared in a sneer.  Duo stepped back.

“Not a word, not one.  Don’t even snigger, or I’ll cut that braid in your sleep.” 

“I just had a question.”

“Keep it to yourself.”

“But I--”  He yelped and glared suddenly at Heero.  Heero’s foot was pressed against his toes. 

“We’ll be leaving shortly.  The ride will be about two hours, and then there’s a bit of wait time before you go.”

“Understood.”

“We just need Une to give us clearance to leave.”  Zechs continued.  Trowa nodded 

Une returned within ten minutes, a black coat draped over one arm.  None of them had moved from the respective spots.  She shook her head.

“I said behave, not be statues,” Une sighed.  “You’re all set.  Dismissed.  I suggest you go out the back way.  It’ll prevent awkward questions.”

“Yes ma’am.” 

“And Trowa,”  Une called as they filed out.  Trowa stopped and waited for her as she walked up to them.  She draped the coat over his shoulders.  “That’s for you.  It’s very cold tonight.  There’s a pad of paper and a pen in one of the pockets.  Use them at your leisure.” 

He nodded slowly, pulling it on and zipping it up to his chin.  Tonight he was Tracy, a deaf dancer who wasn’t in any trouble but was fire on the dance floor.  He shivered.

“Good luck.  I have faith in you.” 

_That makes one of us._

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trowa undergoes his first field assignment.

Going out the back way had been a wonderful idea. There was no one to stare or comment, and Trowa knew that they would because it wasn’t everyday they saw a Preventer in drag. They didn’t see anyone, actually, until the parking garage. Trowa vaguely recognized the man. Someone from his floor, who might work a slightly different shift, that he was pretty sure was called “Leon.” He was taller than Zechs by half an inch had the distinct body shape of someone in the bodyguard business. He looked like he could easily break one of them in half. Of course, the bright red mop of hair and freckles streaked across his nose toned down the intimidation a bit.

Leon gave Trowa a very brief once-over. “Truck’s all set. Read to roll?”

Heero nodded. “You’ve got the address?” Leon smiled and tapped his temple.

“Right here. Already memorized the route. We should be there in about two and a half hours, and that’s if we hit heavy traffic.”

“Let’s go.”

They followed Leon to a blank truck idling in the garage. Zechs climbed into the front with Leon, leaving the back for the four former pilots. Heero slid open the door and climbed inside. He held it open as they climbed in, Trowa last. Trowa frowned slightly, glancing briefly down at his shoes. He hadn’t thought about this part. Wufei and Duo glanced back. Wufei half turned towards him. Trowa grit his teeth, grabbed the edges of the doorway, and hoisted himself in. His heels slipped but only slightly.

The back of the truck was dark, and much darker once Heero shut the door. Computer stations lined either side, with bolted down chairs at each one. It made the entire area just a little too cramped for four people. But soon it would just be three, and then it would be fine.

“Here,” Duo said, patting a chair next to his. “Take some weight off. It’s going to be a long ride.” He nodded and sank into it, pulling the edges of the coat tight over his legs. Wufei shifted in his chair and watched Heero talk with Leon through a small window with unusual interest. Trowa folded his arms and sank back in the chair.

“Alright,” Heero said, stepping back from the window. “Let’s go.” Leon waited until Heero was in a chair himself before going. Trowa gripped the arms of his chair at the sudden, hard acceleration. He wondered if Leon was unaware that these chairs didn’t have seatbelts.

Without windows or any real light apart from weak pinpricks from electronics, Trowa felt the exhaustion and the tension drain him. He had been too anxious for too long. It was never good to sleep this close to a mission, but it wasn’t good to walk into it as exhausted as he was. Two hours was more than enough. Shift his arms to rest over his stomach, Trowa let himself slip into a doze. Not deep enough to dream, he couldn’t risk that, but enough to be restful.

He could still hear the whisper of conversation, although it faded from time to time when he passed too close to sleep. He was in one of the shallower parts of his dozing when the truck stopped. Someone put a hand on his shoulder.

“You awake?” Someone asked, just low enough that it was difficult to decide who. Trowa opened his eyes, and winced. Someone had found a switch for an overhead bulb.

“Yeah,” he said, sitting up from the slouch he had fallen in. Wufei took a step back.

“We’re about five blocks away,” he said. Trowa rubbed his shoulder and nodded. “We’ve got about twenty minutes left, so Duo’s make a fuel run. You want anything?”

He still felt nauseous. “No.”

“You’re not going to get a chance to eat again for a while.”

“I’m sure. Thanks.” Wufei shrugged and turned, nodding at Duo who was crouched by the door. He winked before hopping out of the truck and shutting the door behind him. Trowa stretched, watching Heero and Wufei boot up the equipment, checking audio and video feeds. Nothing he could help with. Trowa patted the pockets of his coat, finding the pad of paper in the right one. He took it out. It looked new. Too new. Trowa flipped it open and tore out a couple of pages, stuffing them into the other pocket. He twisted the thin cardboard cover in his hands, bending the corners, even giving it a little rip. He even took the time to pluck some of the spiraled wiring out.

He was busy writing out shopping lists and letdowns, making obvious mistakes and scratching them out, when Zechs peeked over his shoulder.

“Not bad,” he said. “Definitely looks like a lady’s notebook. Although I’m not sure ladies use that kind of language.”

“Women are allowed to swear, even the deaf ones.”

“True enough. Come over here when you’re ready.”

Trowa gave the notebook one more look before stuffing it in his pocket. He rose and followed Zechs the five steps to a free monitor. Zechs sat down at it and gestured Trowa to sit in the chair next to it.

“This,” he said once he pulled a small pearl earring from a small box sitting on the keyboard, “is a two-way receiver. The range is about ten city blocks, at best. It’ll record audio and let us talk to you. Volume’s quiet, so no one should hear it.” Zechs held it out. Trowa took it and turned it over.

“Got a safety pin?”

“And hydrogen peroxide,” Zechs said before getting up. He shuffled away and came back with a first aid kit and a safety pin.

“You got it?”

“Yeah, tilt your head,” He said while soaking the length of the point with the disinfectant. Trowa tilted his head toward the light and moved his hair. Zechs dabbed the lobe with soaked cotton. “Alright, here we go.” Zechs set the point against the skin, eyed the placement, and then forced the point through. Trowa hissed.

Zechs cleaned up the blood with a bit of tissue before inserting the earring and securing the backing. Somehow, having the earring was more painful than getting the piercing.

“One down, one to go.”

Of course. One earring was, mostly, a boy’s habit. And Tracy didn’t seem the kind of girl to be “boyish.”

Zechs swabbed, aligned, and pierced the other. “Done,” he said after he attached the other’s backing. “I’d take those out right after the mission and give the holes a good soak with more hydrogen peroxide. Piercing infections suck.”

“Because you would.”

Zechs smiled. “Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t. Now then, this,” he said, pulling out another tiny bit of surveillance equipment. “Is your camera. Please be careful. It’s very sensitive and very delicate.”

“I’ll leave it alone.”

Nodding, Zechs leaned forward. He took hold of Trowa’s coat. Trowa caught his hand.

“What?”

“I can put on a pin, Zechs.”

“My mistake. Just don’t crush it.” Zechs handed him the delicate instrument. Trowa looked at it for a moment, holding it carefully between thumb and forefinger. It was a small cross, a Celtic design he thought, with a series of fake jewels embedded in it. Setting it on his knee, Trowa unzipped his coat. He pulled it aside enough to attach the pin carefully to his shirt. It was too cold in the truck, however, so Trowa zipped the coat back up quickly.

The truck door slid open and Duo stumbled inside with a plastic bag on each arm. Heero grabbed his arm before he fell. Duo dropped the bags on the gournd and started handing out cans while Heero closed the door.

“You’d think a convenience store deli would still be open at eight at night but no. Why would anyone want a sandwich after six?”

“So what did you get?”

“Protein bars and shit.”

Heero frowned. Duo tossed him a can. Heero caught it and eyed it suspiciously before opening it. He nearly spat out his first sip. “What the hell is this?”

“It’s an energy drink.” Duo said, opening his own after passing some out to Wufei and Zechs. “Gives you a great boost, awesome way to stay alert.”

“Of course it does,” Wufei snapped as he read the can. “There’s nothing but sugar and caffeine.”

“They’re good.”

“They’re disgusting.” Heero said.

“I’d rather drink rat poison.”

“No rat poison but I bought water too.”

“Toss it over.”

“Fine, more caffeine me.”

“Is this what you’ve been drinking recently,” Heero asked, glaring at Duo and the can in turns. “No wonder you don’t sleep anymore.”

“You weren’t complaining about that last night.”

“TMI, man. TMI.” Leon said, cutting across Heero’s snarl. Duo just smirked.

“Maxwell,” Heero growled.

“I think I should get going.” Trowa said, standing just as Heero looked ready to lunge at Duo. Wufei glanced at his watch.

“Probably,” he agreed. Wufei nudged Heero out of the way and opened the van door. Trowa rose and slipped between them. “We’ll establish contact with you in three minutes.”

Trowa nodded, deciding that if he was going to play a mute, he needed to start now. He dropped from the van carefully. His legs still ached when the heels hit the pavement.

“The club is six blocks south. Follow this street; there’ll be one building on the right with a green light outside. Take the alley just before the light. There should be some kanji graffiti on the very back wall of the alley. There’s one door and that’s door we want.”

Trowa nodded once.

“Be careful,” Wufei said. “Stay alert.”

Trowa didn’t wait for the door to close before turning and heading down the street.

The buildings lining the street were unusually old and dilapidated. Obviously, he was not in the better part of the city anymore. Trowa walked carefully, mindful of the cracks and potholes that could break his ankle, stepping over litter and bottles. In the distance, there was the shriek of a police siren and an echoing pop that might have been a bullet. Just above his head, a couple screamed at each other. There was a crash of breaking china. Most of the streetlights were out, making him walk through long periods of near darkness before passing through light. But with the limited light, Trowa had an excellent view of the clear winter sky. If he was inclined to look up instead of ahead of him, and here he was not.

Trowa kept his eyes on the ground. If anyone was following him, he would hear them first and see their shadow second.

By the fifth block, Trowa stumbled from the cold. He shoved his hands as far into the pockets as he could and rolled his shoulders forward to block out some of the wind. A permanent stream of white puffed out from his nose. His skin felt tight, his feet stiff, when he finally saw the green light Wufei had mentioned. Trowa turned into the alley just before it.

There was something written on the back wall, all right, but it was too dark for Trowa to make out. He saw the door handle, though, about three-quarters into the alley. Trowa hurried toward it, ignoring gross squelching and ice splintering beneath his feet. The metal was cold enough to burn. Trowa yanked the door open and slipped in.

Trowa stumbled back into the door as hot air rolled over him. The sudden rush of it against his skin almost hurt. He fought the urge to rub his cheek. After a few seconds, though, it started feeling pleasant. Trowa stepped away from the door and headed down the hall. After two steps, he unzipped his coat.

“Excellent. We’ve got visual,” Duo whispered in his ear. Trowa nearly jumped. _It’s the earring. Two-way._

Trowa moved slowly down the hallway. Everything was red. Red light pouring from the frosted lamps onto red walls. Red plush carpet on top of cheery hardwood floors. It was like walking through a ruby, or a bloodbath. He could hear fast music through the wall, occasionally felt the base through his feet. Somewhere, a woman laughed, high and shrill. Trowa shuddered.

Halfway down the hall, when Trowa was starting to wrinkle his nose at the unpleasant mix of perfumes and alcohol, cigars and musk, a young man stumbled out of a door not “hidden” only because it was a slightly different shade of red.

“Dear god, tell me your name is Tracy.”

Trowa wasn’t sure what to expect from the manager of a high class strip club, but it wasn’t a rumpled young man. Robert, if his memory served, had to only be a few years older than Trowa himself. Or else he aged extremely gracefully. He worse a finely tailored gray suit that was so wrinkled that he must have slept in it recently. His blonde hair had been immaculate before; Trowa could see the sharp reflection of hair gel. But he had been running his hands through it, so now it stuck up like he had been mildly electrocuted.

Honestly, if he saw him on the street, Trowa would have thought he was a very agitated public accountant.

“Are you Tracy,” he begged.

Forcing himself to look startled instead, Trowa fumbled with his pocket. He dropped it. Robert picked it up and nearly dropped it himself. Trowa took it and frantically flipped to a blank page.

 _**Yes. My name is Tracy. Are you Robert?** _ He scrawled in a slightly more feminine writing.

Robert let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank god.” Robert shook his hand, and his arm along with it “Yes, I’m Robert. I run this club but I’m sure Lena told you that already. ”

Trowa wrenched his arm out of his grip, scribbled more, and held up it up. _**Yes, she did.** _

“I’m sorry, I’m sure that’s really irritating but I know about three things in sign language: “thank you,” “I’m sorry,” and well I don’t want to insult you but you get the idea.” Trowa managed not to roll his eyes. “I’d get you a translator, except I don’t know any. No one here really has much use for sign language, and honestly most of the girls don’t spend that much time talking to customers.”

_**Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind.** _

“I really appreciate you doing this for Lena. I’m sure it wasn’t how you planned to spend a Friday night. Normally I’d never ask someone like you to fill in,” _Someone like me? If I was actually mute, I might be insulted._ “But I’m desperate. Lena picked the worst night to get sick. Everyone is sick. They all picked up whatever’s flying around the city. Half the girls can’t be here. At least Lena had the sense to call someone, and you do sure as hell look the part.”

Trowa flushed, and it wasn’t entirely fake.

“Lena’s got her head on, and she knows her stuff, so I’m sure you’re a good dancer. And I’m desperate.”

_**I’m happy to help her out. Just show me what’s what.** _

Robert smiled and wrapped his arm about his shoulder. Trowa thought Tracy didn’t mind it, so he smiled. “I’ll show you what’s what,” he said, leading him further down the hall. Trowa followed beside him. He forced his shoulders to stay down, to stay relaxed, because Tracy would be relaxed even when he wasn’t. _Relax. One night, remember. One night, one night. He thinks I’m a woman. I’ll never see him again._

“You’ll be on in about 10 minutes. I’ll drop you off in the dressing room first so you can do whatever. You can leave your coat there. Nothing will happen to it, we have security. Oh this hall here, this takes you right to the main area. That’s where the stage is and tables and chairs. Everything’s pretty self-explanatory. And this hall takes you back stage where your music’s set up. Lena called me with the song and it’s all programmed. You’ll enter the stage from there.”

Trowa nodded slowly, trying to look a little overwhelmed. It wasn’t hard.

“After your performance, you’re free to move about the floor and mingle as you like. Technically, you have be there for them to look at. But you’re on the eye candy policy. Did Lena did explain eye candy?” Trowa nodded. “Great. That’s there for you. It lets you call the shots when it comes to getting attention.. Anyone gets too close, just let one of security know. They’ll take care it. You’ll know the security; they’re the ones who look like misplaced Secret Service agents.”

They stopped in front of another red door. This one, however had a very large man in front of it. He looked down his nose at Trowa, tightening his fist. Trowa stiffened and immediately looked for weaknesses and openings.

“This is Tracy, Max. Remember? Eye candy Tracy,” Robert said slowly. Max glanced at him before looking down at Trowa again. Trowa stared up at him unblinkingly, somehow managing a frightened smile. After a moment, Max opened the door and stepped aside. .

“Max is,” Robert whispered, leading Trowa into the dressing room. “He’s a little slow. But he’s family, and he needs somebody. Besides, once he understands, he’s damn good at his job. Don’t worry, he’ll make sure you have your privacy.”

Trowa wondered if Max would even let him out.

“Make up’s over there, somewhere. Don’t ask me, the girls maintain this, doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. Remember, you’re on in 10. And then just, you know, hang around and mingle if you want or keep to yourself, whatever. Keep an eye out, let someone know if anyone screws with you. And then after an hour you can go.”

Trowa had been finding a place to put his coat while Robert talked. He looked over his shoulder at him as he draped it over a chair.

_**I thought I had Lena’s shift.** _

“You do, but only the first part of it. I got one girl to agree to come in and take the rest of it. But she won’t be here for about an hour and a half at least. I mean, you can stay if you want, but no one’s going to blame you if you don;t.”

Inwardly, Trowa frowned. Would it look suspicious if he insisted that no one had to come in early? That no one had to take his place? Most definitely, and staying after said girl had arrived would look just as suspicious. This meant, however, that he had only an hour and a half to get collect evidence. He had no idea how obvious Kader was in these meetings, either. This could be easy, or ridiculously hard. He had been counting on a whole night. Trowa swore in his head. But he managed a smile at Robert. Tilting his head to the side, he scrawled a new message.

_**That’s very nice of you. Thank you.** _

“No need for thanks. You’ll probably prefer it. I’m sure they’ll love you, maybe a little too much, but sometimes our customers don’t take well to newbies. They like routine here. They can get a little nasty. But probably nothing too bad.”

Trowa certainly hoped not. On such a limited time, he wanted no problems whatsoever.

Robert glanced at his watch. “I need to go finish the finances, and you need to get ready. So I’ll leave you to it. I might come see you when I’m finished, but if she shows up first, you can just go home, alright?”

Trowa nodded.

“Good luck, then, and thanks again for coming in for her,” he said. Robert left, closing the door behind him. Trowa waited a minute before pressing an ear to the door. The mutterings and footsteps faded quickly. Stepping back, he took a look around.

He had never been in a dressing room before, apart from those closets in clothing stores. This one was far homier, with an odd but charming assortment of chairs and tables. There was even a large, well-worn couch pushed against one wall. The walls were green, which was an excellent change. Trowa pulled out a cushioned stool and sat down with a sigh. He reach down and rubbed his ankle. The skin felt raw from the strap.

“No touch up,” Duo asked with a chuckle. Trowa shifted around to face the mirror, so Duo could see him glower. “Just asking. You make a very convincing mute, you know. Very fast with that pen.”

 _Just wait until I get to the van._ There was a small clock sitting on the vanity, right next to a powder puff. _Three minutes. Let’s get this over with._

Outside, Max looked at him blankly. For a moment, Trowa thought he didn’t recognize him, but then the large man stepped aside. Trowa slipped around him and started down the hall. He heard the door close behind him and Max shuffle back in front of the door. Honestly, he didn’t understand the need. He was, as far as he could tell, the only “girl” around, and all he had left in the room was a coat, a pad, and a pen. Stupid things to die for.

_People have died for less._

Backstage, Trowa heard low chatter and the clink of glass. He stood by the stereo, watching the still curtain, imagining the tables, trying to put a number to the myriad of tones and chuckles. He couldn’t, and somehow that inability to estimate the size of his audience knotted his stomach. When he reached for the play button, his fingers trembled. Trowa gripped them for a few seconds.

 _I’m not nervous. I’m not nervous._ He had infiltrated worse places than this. He had had guns pressed against his temple, heard the grind of the chamber as it rotated. He had held guns to people’s heads, his friends’ heads, at the mercy of people who could not hesitate in front of. Trowa had been shot, captured, near discovered, blown up. He had been through so much worse than this. Did a skirt and pair of heels really make that much of a difference?

Trowa bit back a shiver. Apparently. He pressed play and stepped out on stage.

Dozens of eyes turned on him, making that not-nervous-definitely-not-nervous feeling swimming in his stomach even worse. Waitresses tilted their heads in mild appraisal of his outfit. Suited men, bent over drinks or leaning back in their chairs, eyed his curves and the flesh he bared. Appraising him. Trowa felt the color drain from beneath makeup.

Swallowing, Trowa realized that he was five seconds away from missing the cue Lena had nearly beaten into his skull. Trowa shifted his right foot, swept out his arm and spun into the opening move. As the colors swirled past him, Trowa saw him. Sitting just to the right of the stage, at a small table with three men, Fahd Kader sipped a drink with the slow deliberateness of someone pretending to pay attention to a conversation. Trowa wasn’t fooled as he moved. Kader stared at him with too hard, too dark eyes to be listening. Trowa stared back for a few seconds. And then found himself unable to look away. There was something in that gaze that held him, even when his blood warmed and chilled with _something_ most definitely not nervousness.

Something _else._

Trowa broke the gaze finally, slipping into the now almost familiar trance-like state. And then, intentional or not, he found himself adding. Flavoring the dance, as Lena said. An extra step here or there. A roll of his hips there. And just as Lena had said, the flavor got a noticeable response from the crowd. Almost like a low rumbling purr. Trowa nearly tripped, he nearly stopped, embarrassed and uncomfortable. He forced himself to move, to roll his stomach and arch his back more than necessary. He wanted the attention. He wanted Kader’s attention, heavy and constant. Trowa needed the attention, he told himself, to get the evidence. Trowa tried to meet Kader’s eyes as often as possible. Kader let him, staring unblinking, almost uninterested, until near the end of Trowa’s performance.

And then Kader smiled. It was a slow curl of his lips, somehow knowing. Predatory. A hunter’s smile.

Trowa nearly tripped. An hour near him was fine. An hour was perfect.

Catcalls and whistles rushed over him as the song finished. Trowa, flushing from more than exertion, held the final pose for much shorter than he should have. He at least managed not to run off stage. The whistles followed him backstage, as did the shiver he got from that feral smile. Maybe the flavor had been a bad idea, but it was too late to think about that now. Running a hand through his hair, Trowa walked back to the dressing room. He stopped only once, waiting for Max to remember him. Trowa leaned back against the door once it had closed behind him.

“You’re not dancing anymore right,” Duo asked. “Because that last bit of feed made me seriously motion sick.”

Trowa glared at the mirror. Pushing off from the door, he went over to his coat and dug out the pad. He flipped it open to a new page and scribbled out a few choice words. Trowa dangled it at arm’s length, just for Duo. Someone chuckled over the feed.

“Hey, I did not deserve that.”

“Yes you did.”

“Is it my fault his music-video moment was more nauseating than tea cups at a bad carnival?”

 _Yes,_ Trowa thought as he contemplated a very crude gesture. It wasn’t like him. Not at all, and he was going to be very happy for this night to be over and to back to the point where he wasn’t constantly fighting for control. _No more than usual, anyway._

Max didn’t acknowledge him when he left again; he was becoming used to Trowa, it seemed. Trowa managed to keep his usual level of control over himself as he headed out to the main room. The closer he got, the more he forced his shoulders and expression to relax. Tracy wouldn’t be nervous. By the time he reached the entrance, Trowa even managed a vague smile.

Trowa observed the room with honest curiosity. The walls were a shade or two darker than the dressing room’s. The plush carpet here matched better. Trowa noticed a bar stretching across the back wall. He walked to it carefully, weaving around black-stained wooden tables and matching, red cushioned chairs, smiling where he dared. Most of the men, easily twice his age, returned the smile briefly before dismissing him. A couple of them leered or whistled. One actually licked his lips. But no one touched him. They had been informed of him being eye candy, apparently. Which was good because Trowa didn’t want to suffer groping, or blow his cover by punching someone.

There were no stools at the bar; there weren’t even any bottles. There were plenty of glasses, though.

The bartender smiled. “Tracy, right?”

He nodded, letting the smile widen slightly.

“Thought so. Boss mentioned we’d have a temp tonight,” he said as he cleaned a glass. “You did good up there”

Trowa set the pad down on the bar and scribbled out a response. _**Thank you.** _

The bartender smiled more and set down his rag. He stacked the freshly polished glasses before extending his hand. “I’m Anthony, by the way.” Trowa took the hand and shook it, loosening his usual grip. “Fancy a glass of water?”

_**A glass of water would be great.** _

“Coming right up,” Anthony said. Trowa smiled a bit before leaning against the bar. Most of the men had since lost interest in him, but a few were still eyeing him, their lips tight around the lips of their glasses. Trowa didn’t want to know what they were thinking.

Trowa’s water appeared at his elbow. He smiled at Anthony, sipped it, and continued to look, coming to rest finally on his target.

Kader hadn’t followed him at all when he entered the room. He had been deep in conversation, still was in fact, leaning across the table until he was only inches away from his two companions. Each other their drinks stood abandoned, on the verge of being knocked off the table by a careless movement. As much as he didn’t want to, Trowa forced himself to look away after thirty seconds. Focusing would be suspicious.

“Nice choice. We have a perfect view, even with the tables in the way.” Trowa sipped his water and pretended to be interested in a distant group of men. Duo suddenly cursed. Trowa bit the glass rim. “Bastards moved. They’re blocking the view. Can you get closer?”

Trowa sipped his water. By the time he finished it, he had decided on which table to sit at. He set the empty glass down and picked up the pad. After writing for a moment, he turned back to Anthony and slid it to him.

_**Is it okay if I sit down? Maybe at one of the free tables?** _

“I don’t see why not. Knock yourself out. You want another water?”

Trowa shook his head. _**Not now, thanks.**_ Turning, he strode casually between tables, once again earning a few looks and whistles as he moved. He did his best to look casual as he looked for a seat, considering two others before opting for the one he had already picked. Trowa pulled out a chair at an empty table two tables away from Fahd’s. He set the pad down in front of him and tapped it with his pen, “thinking.”

“Much better,” Duo said. Trowa shifted and started writing random notes. “Shift a little to your right.” He leaned his head on his fist, shifting in the chair on the pretense of being comfortable. “Perfect. Dead center. Now we wait. Maybe if we adjust the levels, we can hear them better.”

Trowa doubted it. He was less than ten feet away and could hardly hear a word. That certainly didn’t stop him from trying, though. His eyes narrowed as he strained to listen. The voices were too soft, and if he moved too soon, they could know that Trowa was not simply there to rest his ankles. Trowa waited a couple of minutes, writing out mobile statistics before wiping his mouth with his hand. He rose then and walked back to the bar. When he came back with fresh water, he picked a closer chair. A little worse for video, barely better for audio.

It was just enough.

“No, gentlemen, I’m afraid you don’t and it’s begun to aggravate me.” It was not the first time that Trowa had heard Kader, but the deep baritone still managed to startle him. There was power in that voice, and his companions knew it.

“My lord, we--”

“I have warned you of calling me such outside private company, have I not?”

They swallowed, one more noticeably than the other. “My apologies, sir. We merely assumed--”

“What have I told you about assuming?” Kader asked. Rubbing with eyes, he reached over and drained at least half of his glass. “Now explain it to me.”

“People are asking questions.”

“What sort of people?”

“Insiders who shouldn’t be asking anything at all,” the other muttered. Kader glanced at him over the glass.

“What sort of questions?”

“What are we doing? How’s the information leaking? Why are finances being lost? People are getting suspicious.”

“You should be covering your tracks.”

“We’ve been. We just don’t have the resources the rest of the company has. We don’t have the money to find a way around the hounds they’re starting to send.” Trowa sipped his water slowly, setting the glass down calmly before writing out again. This time, in between lines of nonsense and battle statistics, he jotted down notes on what he heard. Just in case the feed was bad.

“What are you expecting out of me, gentlemen? My protection? Because you are no closer to earning it than you were when I first contacted you,” Kader said softly. The air around the table tensed. Trowa kept his hand steady and moving.

“We’ve done everything you asked, we’ve gotten you everything you needed. Everything, from passports to chemicals to weapons.” _Hope they got that on tape._ Propping himself up on his elbow, Trowa shifted in his sit for a better angle.

“Say that a little louder, I’m looking for some stress relief,” Kader growled. The one closest to Trowa stamped lightly on the less controlled one’s foot, glaring at him and whispering something Trowa didn’t understand. It couldn’t have been friendly, though, judging from the hissing. “What you’ve accomplished, I have acknowledge. But your failures outnumber your successes. You’ve fucked up plenty.”

“We understand that, sir,” the calmer of the two began. “We know our failings are and that you do not forgive them. But our successes have been instrumental. You said that yourself. We want to help you, we want to help our country. Our kind. But we can’t if we’re discovered.”

“There are others,” he replied dismissively.

“There are, but none who came forward like us. We showed our loyalty to you first, the country second. They have not been so open with their allegiance.” Kader made a low noise of acknowledgment. “We want to help you, sir, but we can’t if we can’t move as we please.”

Kader said nothing. Trowa chanced the briefest glance he could manage. Kader sat back in his chair, balancing it on its hind legs slightly. He held the glass in his hand, rolling the stem between his fingers. His expression was oddly thoughtful. And then Kader’s gaze shifted from the swirling red liquid. For a moment, Trowa thought he had caught his eye. For a moment, he thought he had seen that feral smile, pointed at him

Trowa looked away, picking up his drink and swallowing a large mouthful.

Kader set his glass down with a soft thunk. When Trowa turned his gaze back, there was a smile, small and benign.

“If you spoke as eloquently as your friend, you’d get much more of what you want,” Kader scolded gently. “I’ll see what I can do for you.” Both of the men across from him seemed to relax noticeably. The unfamiliar words they exchanged were much calmer and full of gratitude. “Enough. You two have been the most essential. And getting the heat away from you won’t be impossible. By the time I find our next meeting place, they’ll have backed off. I promise that.”

“How will we know it’s safe to meet again?”

“How can we contact you?”

“You do not contact me, remember? I contact you,” he said with a low growl.

“Yes sir.”

Finishing his drink, Kader leaned across the table again. “Now then, let’s finish the finer points of this meeting. We all have places we need to be tonight, I’m sure.”

Trowa, sipping his drink and jotting down notes, listened intently. He didn’t need to understand the finer points of the conversation to know that this was a business dealing. _Kader’s buying weapons and technology from these men. Not sure which company, but obviously one with bad ties. Weapons of mass destruction were never used for anything good._ Trowa would know. He had, after all, piloted one.

Trowa nearly choked on his drink when he realized that some of the technology Kader was interested in had an astounding similarity to the suit he had piloted during the war. _This isn't terrorism. He wants to start a war._

If this wasn’t admissible proof, Trowa wasn’t sure what was.

For a while, he sat at the table and observed, from the corner of his eye, a variety of paperwork passed from one party to the other. It wasn’t until he saw Kader sign several that he was sure that they were contracts on the exchange of goods and services. That had to be enough to satisfy Une’s needs. Trowa flicked his notebook closed and finished his water.

When the catcalls started again, Trowa looked around the room. He was still in his seat, and drinking water couldn’t be that attractive. Then he saw her, a tall blonde, dressed in less than he was and flashing knowing, flirtatious smiles at several men. Obviously, she was the girl Robert had managed to call in. Trowa caught her eye. She smiled and waved at him. Trowa returned it before gathering up his things. He returned his glass to the bar before going over to her.

“Lena’s friend right,” she asked while brushing back some of her waist-length blonde hair. Trowa nodded. _**Tracy. Nice to meet you.**_

She smiled and shook Trowa’s hand. “Nice to meet you too, Tracy. You can call me Alex, everyone does.” Alex released his hand and squeezed his shoulder. “Thanks for this, I know it means a lot to Lena.”

_**My pleasure.** _

Alex smirked. “Don’t lie. But now I’m here so you can go on home. Put your feet up, those look painful.”

Trowa pretended to be a little concerned, shifting his shoulders some. _**Shouldn’t I find Robert first? Let him know I’m done?**_

“You can but I don’t recommend it. He’s in one of his work moods. Best just to leave him alone. Besides Anthony and security all saw you dance, right?”

_**Right.** _

“Don’t worry, they’ll vouch for you. So go on. Grab your coat—and I love that coat by the way, where the hell did you get it—and get a cab before someone gets stupid.”

Trowa didn’t have to pretend to be confused. He tilted his head to one side.

“Some of our guests have short-term memories. Best get you home before that.”

_**Oh. Thanks.** _

“Girls gotta look out for each other. I’ll tell Robert that you were fabulous. He’ll love hearing that. So go home.”

_**I’m going, I’m going. Good night.** _

“Good night, thanks again, and tell Lena I say hi if you see her before me,” Alex said. With one last squeeze of his shoulder, she turned and trotted off to the bar. Trowa watched her for a moment before slipping back into the hall.

He realized there was a problem when he saw the dressing room door. Max was gone. Trowa’s pulse spiked momentarily. But as he glanced around, and noticed no immediate or glaring changes to the area, he realized that it was ridiculous to think the man would stand in front of the door all night. He had to be allowed to leave sometimes, at the very least to go to the bathroom. Still, as the door wasn’t locked, Trowa eased it open carefully and examined  
the room with more caution than had been necessary before.

“Nicely done,” Duo congratulated through the earpiece, loudly. Trowa winced. Thankfully no one was around to see, or hear. He was certain they would have. “Une should definitely be able to nail him now. Not bad for your first field mission, huh?”

Asides from having to dress like a woman, wear high heeled sandals, pretend to be mute, and perform in front men, all of whom had been undressing him with their eyes?

Trowa merely shrugged, tossing the pad on the vanity. “Still playing the mute? Not a bad idea. Never know who might be listening.” Trowa nodded, pushing his hair back off his face. “Hurry up and we can head home.”

Trowa nodded. He swept up his coat and stuffed the pad and pen into one of the pockets. Trowa was just swinging it around his shoulders when he heard a slow, heavy clapping. Trowa caught the dark gaze in the mirror. The coat fluttered to the floor.

“A spectacular performance you gave tonight. Truly,” Fahd Kader said, clapping once more—a bone-chilling sound—before letting his hands fall. Trowa watched his reflection, leaning against the doorframe, taking up most of it with broad shoulders. Trowa breathed slowly through his nose. “I’m very impressed. Your dance was flawless. Your attempts at being a mute were exceptional. Your spying was almost completely unnoticeable.” Trowa dug his fingers into the vanity. _How?_ “And you make such a fantastic woman.”

Trowa’s throat tightened. Duo swore in his ear, the sound degenerating into a long hissing at the others in the van.

Kader noticed the sudden tension in his shoulders. A grin seeped across his face. Trowa’s pulse thundered against his temples. Kader stepped away from the door and towards the vanity, towards him, making far less noise than Trowa ever would have expected for someone of his height and build. Trowa stood calmly, forcing his fingers to release their grip on the vanity’s edge. Even when Kader was behind him, even he was pressed up against his back, Trowa didn’t do anything other than lock his knees momentarily and inhale sharply.

“I bet you’re wondering, ‘How did he know’,” Kader said. His breath was hot against Trowa’s neck. “ ‘How could he possibly know?’ Well, I admit for a short while, you had even me fooled.” Trowa stood straight back, staring hard at the mirror, counting every line of brown and black in the man’s eyes. The corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “But I figured it out. You see, I’ve spent most of my life making sure people are who they say they are. I would have been dead a long time ago if I hadn’t.” Trowa said nothing, waiting for the point. Because there was a point, and when they go to it, he could take the advantage. Until then, he had to be still and silent. So when Kader slid a hand around his hip, Trowa only let out the smallest of uncomfortable noises.

“But them,” Kader said ignoring the way Trowa tensed beneath his fingers. “They were too focused on the wrong part of you to see it. They were too enamored with your body, too accepting of your provocativeness. Don’t get me wrong, so was I, just not as deeply.”

It was close, he could tell. It was close, he could wait and not dig his fingers into the eyes that were sweeping down the curves of his reflection.

“Don’t be so cross. It’s nothing so easily noticeable. You have a woman’s body, in the right places.” The hot breath flicked past his ear as Kader ducked down. He resisted the urge to turn away. “Your hair’s a convincing style, the make up is flawless. And those prosthetics are the most convincing I’ve ever seen.” Trowa couldn’t stop himself from flinching. It was coming, it had to be coming, please let the point be coming. “It’s such a small thing, really, but so very important. You see,”

The hand on his hip tightened to bruising. Kader’s other snaked up and around his shoulder, gripping Trowa’s bare forearm in a vice. Trowa flexed his hand, impassive to the pain. He stared at Kader as he smiled, the white-toothed grin feral and full of intentions Trowa didn’t want to consider.

“You see, women don’t have adam’s apples.”

The point, and Trowa didn’t hesitate. Forcing his leg back between Kader’s, Trowa rammed his elbow back with a sharp twist of his hips, forcing as much power into the blow as he could. His aim was for the soft flesh just below the rib cage. He hit it dead on. It felt like his elbow had collided with concrete.

Still, Fahd doubled forward. Biting back a wince, Trowa shoved back into him. Kader stumbled backward. Trowa shot out to the side, snatching up his coat before breaking into a run.

“Get the hell out of there,” Duo screamed into his ear. Trowa needed nothing else. Coat in hand, Trowa tore towards the door, praying his balance was good enough for heels. He grabbed the doorknob and yanked; hopefully Max was there and would see a large man in the dressing room as a problem. A fight would give him more than enough time to escape.

A hand, much larger than his own, slammed into the wood above his head. The second slammed into his back, shoving Trowa into the door and the door closed. Something sharp stabbed into his chest. Trowa heard a snap and realized the pin must’ve snapped.

“Very effective. Do it again and I’ll break your elbow,” Kader snarled. Trowa growled in return. He lashed out with his leg. Kader jumped back just as Trowa hoped. Using the handle for leverage and balance, Trowa swept his leg up in a high crescent. The heel was solid, the edge of it looked sharp enough to cut with the right speed and angle. If he could knock him back with a grazing blow to the face—

Kader grabbed the base of the heel and held it inches from his face. The other hand closed about his entire ankle. Trowa flinched at the pain. Balance left him the moment Fahd pulled the leg towards him. Trowa’s knee buckled. He swung out with his fist only to have it caught just as easily. Snarling, Kader forced him back against the door and held him there, arm and leg both held at an awkward, painful angle.

“It’s rude to try and kick someone in the face,” he growled, Trowa bit back a pained gasp as Kader twisted his leg further. “Unless you’d like me to break this, I don’t suggest trying again.”

Trowa didn’t answer, focusing on trying to break the hold. Kader merely smiled at him.

“You’re stubborn and persistent, and I admire that. But it’s starting to get annoying.” The grips tightened. Trowa winced. He was definitely going to bruise. “I didn’t come back here to lecture you on proper spy techniques, or the evils of cross-dressing, or lying to potential employers about a little thing like gender. Honestly, I don’t care.”

Kader leaned close, pressing between his legs. Trowa shuddered. “What I care about are little boys who think they’re clever and can spy on me.” The hand that had gripped Trowa’s lashed out, gripping his mouth and jaw. It squeezed to the point that Trowa could hear his jaw creak. “I know exactly who you’re working for. I’ve been waiting for this moment for quite a while.”

Trowa clawed at the hand around his mouth. Kader smiled. “Because now I get to send a message to the Preventers. And I’m sure you’ll deliver it skillfully. You aren’t just a pretty face—”

Kader let out a sudden roar of pain. Trowa made a face at the taste of blood and flesh in his mouth but clamped down harder on the flesh he had managed to capture. Spitting the wounded handed from his mouth, Trowa managed to deflect the backhand Kader aimed at him. Trowa brought his leg up and slammed his heel into Kader’s. Kader crumpled, cursing, taking Trowa down with him. Trowa managed to squirm out his grip but twisted his ankle in the process. He stumbled as he scrambled to his feet. Trowa ripped open the door again, barely noticing the wood vibrating from connecting sharply with Kader’s head. _I hope it cracked his skull._

Running was harder than he thought. His ankle didn’t want to support his weight; every time he put weight on it, pain lanced up his leg. Trowa didn’t stop. Halfway to the door, he heard the first sounds of a large, furious pursuer. Trowa ran, trying to shift his weight to keep from exacerbating the injury, or worse tripping in the heels. He had to at least make it outside. The darkness could hide him. At the very least a dumpster or trash can.

Kader was gaining on him. Trowa swore he could feel his steps vibrating through the floor. His breath hitched as the adrenaline gave way to something more carnal and distressing. Trowa ran at the door with both hands out, catching the bar hard and exploding into the alley. The night was silent, the cold bracing. Trowa turned quickly on his foot and sprinted for the end of the alley.

Trowa, drowning in the information and the panic and the adrenaline, had completely forgotten about the ice. The patch about halfway down the alley, that he had noted only because he had heard it creak beneath him. Trowa ran into it, one of his heels slipping out from under him almost immediately. The sky whirled passed him as he fell. White burst in front of his eyes as he hit the ice head first. For a moment, Trowa couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He could only feel something hot and stick on the back of his neck, and something cold and brutal from his shoulders down. _Get it together. Can’t stay here, I can’t stay here. Get up, get up, get up._

The ice bit into his knees as he rolled over and tried to push himself up. Vertigo tipped his senses. He swallowed down bile. Trowa’s hands scrambled for purchase, sliding across the black ice. The shoes did no better. He fell forward. The ice against his torso slit him like a knife. _Get up, get up, get up!_

“Trowa? Trowa we lost you, what happened,” Duo asked.

“I-I’m alright.”

“To hell with that. We’ll be there soon.”

Someone swore in his ear. Trowa flinched. “Une said—”

“Forget what Une said, Leon.”

Trowa shook his head. The yelling was making his head hurt worse. “D-don’t move. I’ll be there soon,” he choked out.

“God damn it, Trowa—”

Whatever else Duo wanted to say was lost as a hard leather shoe shot out from the dark. It collided with his chest. Trowa grunted, dropping to the ice. He squirmed to get to his back. A heavy weight pressed down on the center of his back. A hand shoved his head against the ice.

“Trowa,” Duo called. Trowa squirmed and then gasped as Kader pressed his head into the ice hard.

“That,” he snarled, his fingers twined painfully in his hair, “really hurt.” Trowa’s skin was beginning to hurt from the cold and pressure. His entire body starting shivering. “And for that, I’m going to give you all a more forceful message.” Leaning down, Kader breathed over Trowa’s ear. Over the microphone. “Next time you want to tail me, make sure that I’m not aware of it. You’ll keep more men that way.”

“God damn it, Leon, start the van!”

Trowa briefly heard strings of curses before pain ran through his ear. A small chink further down the alley, almost undetectable, gave him the idea that his earlobe had just been torn. He didn’t have time to dwell on it; Kader’s weight lifted momentarily as he flipped Trowa onto his back. The back of Trowa’s skull smacked into the ice. Kader’s face passed in and out of focus above him.

“We have a little time before they get here. I dare say, without that light, it’ll be much harder to find the right alley. There are so many of them in this part of town.”

There was _something_ in his smile. Something in the way Kader looked at him, looked through the fabric clinging to Trowa’s skin. Kader tossed Trowa’s hands down by his head and held them there, weight grinding his bones into the asphalt. He shifted and pinned Trowa’s hips down with his own. Trowa’s breath caught in his throat. There was something there: familiar and terrible and before this moment, only ever present in his nightmares. The shiver that went through Trowa changed as he succumbed to young and carnal fear. He struggled, pulling on the grip, pushing at the weight. He needed something. A hand, a leg. _Anything._

Kader simply chuckled and adjusted his hold. He took both of Trowa’s wrists in one hand, loosening his tie with the other. The silk slid down across Trowa’s cheek. Biting back a noise, Trowa twisted his leg to try and bring it enough to kick. Kader slid down him in response, pressing his weight over his upper thighs.

He tugged Trowa up like he weighed nothing, binding Trowa’s squirming and pulling hands with the tie as the vertigo and nausea made Trowa’s back bow and his head loll across his shoulders. By the time he managed to get some strength to his struggles, Kader was already dropping him. Hitting the ice a third time practically blinded him.

“I do believe I prefer you like this,” he said, eyeing his work. Trowa writhed, pulling at the tie and trying to get some leverage with his hips. Kader stretched himself over him, pressing his hands down above his head. “I do feel for you, you know. Today must have been very stressful. First this getup, make up and high heels, trying to pose successfully as a woman. And then coming here and having to perform in front of men who would have no qualms about taking you in a bathroom stall. Trying to get information on me, only to realize that I knew you were coming. And now you have to lay in the middle of a cold and disgusting alley while I humiliate you. Really, I feel for you, but let’s just chalk it up to a painful learning experience, shall we?”

Trowa snarled and lunged forward, snapping at Kader’s throat. He pulled back with a frown.

“If you’re not going to behave, or at least be compliant, then I’m not going to be considerate.” Compliant? Trowa bucked and writhed and struggled, fought every move Kader made against him with everything he could without resorting to screaming. _I will not give him that satisfaction. I can get out of this. I will get out of this! He won’t—_

Pain blossomed against his face, and suddenly everything stopped. Every thought, every movement, even his heart stilled as a wave of painful heat burned across his nose, cheek, and mouth. Blood, hot and sticky, dripped along his lips and face, down his tongue into his throat. It coated the back of Kader’s hand, which hovered above him. Suddenly Trowa was young again: ten, eleven, drowning in the thudding of his heart as he waited for the hand to fall and the zipper to open and the skin to rip. Trowa’s vision shifted. The mobile suits and scaffolding bled into the dark, filthy walls of the alley before creeping back again. Reality and history mixed. Distorted.

_He can’t. It’s not. It can’t be. It can’t. It can’t._

Trowa’s mouth fell open. Before a noise could escape, Kader’s hands circled his throat and squeezed. The air rushed away. Trowa could barely feel himself pushing with bound hands. Kader spoke to him. Lectured him, but the words blurred as his vision swam with dark lines.

The pressure eased. Trowa gulped air, gasping thankfully for a second before being cut off and drowning again. Kader’s forearm dug into his neck. The pressure was even worse than before. Trowa couldn’t even lift his arms. But it was not enough to numb the feeling of a hand sliding underneath his shirt. Trowa tried to squirm from it and nearly vomited on the closing of his throat. A weak, strangled noise escaped him as the hand drifted along. It wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. He wasn’t there again. There was no hand dipping underneath cloth for the skin of his thighs. There were no fingers stretching up between his legs. There weren’t, there couldn’t be.

The touch disappeared suddenly. The arm across his throat fell away. Trowa choked on air as Kader leaned back, staring at his fingers. He rolled something between them and frowned. Kader looked down at him, at once suspicious, confused, and intrigued.

Trowa had enough air to gasp as the sharp winter air suddenly met his bare chest. Trowa’s stomach knotted as Kader pushed the torn edges of the shirt to the side. He unhooked the bra with frightening skill. Trowa struggled again, scratching at the groping hands.

Pressing down on his windpipe again, Kader fingered the awkward flesh. Trowa gagged, unable to scream in protest when the cold skin was fondled.

“That is an interesting change,” Kader murmured, a strange, appreciative smiling tugging at his lips. Trowa cried out silently as Kader leaned close. He shuddered as warm breath caressed his torn ear. “Should I love, should I gasp, should I fuck you anyway?” The hand on his breast twisted hard. Trowa’s scream sounded like he was underwater.

The alley melted into darkness as Kader pressed down on his throat hard. His senses dulled one by one, until one touch and hearing were left. Dull, but not nearly dull enough. Trowa managed a weak, twitching shudder as cold fingers pushed up. His mouth opened silently.

Trowa felt one last puff of breath against his face before losing consciousness. The voice was low, wavering to the rhythm of the distant push and pull of the fingers.

“What a beautiful freak you are.”

The taste of salt chased him into the dark.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Une and Trowa suffer the aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 20 is finished and published on AFF, and editing all of the previous chapters are taking a long time, for various reasons. I will continue to edit them, and will inform you when chapters have been edited. But for the moment, I am simply going to post what I have and then update the chapters as I finish editing. Therefore, I apologize for any and all odd changes in style or voice.

 

Une hated headaches.  She hated the low, constant throbbing behind her eyes, the one pulsed down her neck and settled in her shoulders, and how they always made her sore and restless.  She had been getting a lot of them recently: two a day on average, which was a sign of continued stress.  She wasn’t surprised, of course; running the day-to-day operations of the Preventers was stressful on a good day.  During a high profile operation, it was practically hell.  She was mostly used to the irritating, slowly-debilitating pain.                

Today’s headache was worse than usual.  Normally, when her head began to pound, she would pause whatever paperwork she was reviewing, or drafting, or signing.  Une would push it, dig out her bottle of aspirin, and pop two.  She’d wash it down with a small bit of water in her coffee mug, maybe get herself a fresh cup if the headache persisted.  Caffeine was good for that.   And then if it was really being stubborn, she’d take a moment to stand at the full length windows that made up the wall behind her desk and watch the city’s skyline.  It was peacefully.  It was relaxing.               

It wasn’t _working_.               

She shouldn’t be surprised; none of it ever worked on migraines.  And she was having a migraine, at least a small one.  The two aspirin she had taken were floating around in her system, absolutely worthless; the coffee tasted unusually bitter, and the view was black and ugly, full of looming building and too bright lights and too many scurrying, noisy people.               

Of course, Une was just projecting.  She liked her coffee black, she had a little bit of an immunity to medicine, and the view was the same as it was this morning, and last night, and the night before.  The only thing that had actually changed was, well, her.                

Somewhere, she had screwed up.  Big time.  And one of her operatives had ended up paying for her mistakes.  Trowa Barton paid for it, with interest.               

 _Kader knew we were onto him._   Her nails dug into the ceramic mug.  Une didn’t know _how_ he had known, but he had.  And he had set up his own little operation in retaliation.  He had staged an exchange for Trowa to overhear and document.  He had waited for Une to send someone so that he could flip the table on her.  Fahd Kader had used her to send a message to the Preventers, using her own operative as the medium.               

The message was expertly sent and properly received.                

Sneering, Une slammed the mug down on her desk.  She glared at the broken pieces as they skittered across the wood.  When she found the waste of skin that had leaked her plans, she’d flay him alive.  Une didn’t allow liars and turncoats.               

She eyed the coffee and ceramic splattered across her desk.  Thankfully, the dregs had steered clear of the documents she had been reading early.  Snatching up the waste basket, she wiped the mess into it as well as she could.  There was always a dishtowel or in one of the drawers of the table where she kept her coffee maker.  Thankfully, it was clean.  Une kicked the drawer closed, scuffing the varnish with the force of it.  She stomped back to her desk and mopped up the mess.  Eventually, like tomorrow, she’d regret the damage she was doing to her wood furniture.               

At the moment, it was uncomfortably satisfying.               

After tossing the stained and dripping towel into the waste basket, Une sank into her desk chair.  She rubbed her temples while digging her nails into the fake leather arm.  One of the many things she loved about fake leather.  Less expensive, less maintenance, less guilt for destroying it with her nails.  And fewer dead cows.  She was rather fond of cows.  They were kind of adorable.                   

She shook her head.  _Focus._ Leaning forward, Une dragged a couple of papers to her.  She didn’t know why; she had read them over a dozen times already.  The only she’d earn would be a worse headache and more guilt.    Exactly what she deserved. 

Une recognized the style of deliver well.  It was crisp and detailed, clean and precise.  As close to clinical as a mission report could get.  Une could almost hear Heero Yuy while reading it.  She shook her head.  He may have learned a lot of things, and changed in a lot of important ways, after the war.  But when he was on the job, he still worked with a machine-like efficiency.  Even when it involved injuries.  Even when it involved a friend.

The report itself was shorter than his usual ones, more of a preliminary, but it told her everything she needed to know at the moment.  The mission had begun perfectly.  Trowa had performed flawlessly.  The environment had accepted him readily.  He had retrieved and valuable information before trying to escape undetected.  And then everything had fallen apart.

 _It fell apart before we even got inside.  Kader knew we were coming.  Someone told him.  Someone set us up, and we fell for it._ She’d maim him, once she found that certain someone. 

She glanced down at the report.  It _was_ a preliminary, revealing just enough detail about the finer points of the failure, and the aftermath, to make her stomach twist.  Lady Une set it aside.

Beneath it was a second of papers Heero had brought in shortly after coming back to headquarters.  Une flipped through them, skimming the conversations Trowa had overheard.  Like the report, she had read it once already; it was all perfect until the last few pages, when Fahd snuck his way backstage and cornered Trowa in a dressing room.  Une read the words transcription with a sneer.

“God damn it all to hell,” she snarled, flinging the transcript and glaring when it slid off the desk.  Une shoved back from the desk.  She gathered up the papers and set them down by her laptop.  Une looked down at them before running a hand through her hair.

She could hear it, through her office door.  Conversations of her officers, occasional jokes, occasional threats.  The typical noises of a busy work place.  So far, there was no hint of discomfort, none of usual tension when Preventers were trying to pretend there was no secret.  So far, the failure was not on any of the floors.  It couldn’t stay like that, however; rumors naturally spread.  Preventors naturally noticed when someone went missing for a couple of days.   But she might be able to do a little work there was too much whispering between desks.

Une threw open her door, stunning her secretary.  He was a young man, fresh out of the academy and ten years younger than most of the staff.  He hadn’t seen a day in the field—of battle or Preventer mission—and so was easily alarmed.  He nearly fell out of his seat.

“Eric,” she warned when he scrambled to his feet and gave a hasty salute.  Eric looked at her and then his hand. He dropped it quickly.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Eric said with a sheepish smile.  Une smiled a bit.

“It’s alright.  You’ll learn.”

“Yes ma’am.  Is there something I can do for you?” 

“I have some errands, and a few people I need to see.  So take messages from any calls and apologize if it happens to be from someone important.”

Eric nodded so rapidly she was afraid he would get whiplash.  “Of course, ma’am.  I’ll get it done.” 

“Thank you, Eric,” she said, walking away.  Une smiled.  Eric had unique effect on her, somehow always managing to return her control when it was slipping through his simple, militaristic response to chain of command.  She appreciated it immensely.

“Ma’am,” he said.  Une walked a few steps before pausing.  She turned.  Eric was half in his seat.  He straightened immediately.    “Is there something else?” 

Une was silent for a moment, considering it.  It must have been a longer silence than normal, because Eric finally made a small, concerned noise, tilting his head.  Une straightened and put a hand on her hip.

"Yes.  Call Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Wufei Chang, or Zechs Merquise, and tell them I want to see them when I get back.  Should be in about fifteen minutes.”

Une wasn’t surprised that Eric swallowed.  He recognized the low, dangerous purr that had entered her voice.  If he hadn’t been able to tell before, he knew now that she was furious, regardless of outward composure. 

If it bothered him, though, he made no other sign.  “Of course ma’am.  Would you like them to wait for you somewhere?”            

“My office is fine.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said.  Une dismissed him with a nod, turning on her heel.  He may be green, but Eric was remarkably steady and trustworthy.  _And a damn fine secretary._   Une had never much cared for a personal secretary.  Even when she had been a loyal member of OZ, she had loathed having to look one.  And look after them she did.  They were nosy, lazy, arrogant, ignorant, obstinate and just plain incompetent.  Much more trouble than they were worth.  At least all the ones that Une had been forced to put up.  Oddly enough, none stayed longer than three months before putting in for reassignment.  Une had too many “anger issues,” they said.  She hadn’t fought for any, and hadn’t been sad to see any of them go..

But Eric was different.  He was young but dedicated, despite having graduated in the top percent.  She would have thought, with his skills and credentials, that he would be offended at being offered a secretarial position.  Yet he had worked with a fervor that she had rarely seen in anyone.  He had a knack for organization and paperwork, and saw the difficulties Une occasionally thrust at him as personal challenges to be bested.  And above all, he was actually pleasant to be around. 

She needed to write a note and remind herself to put his name in for a promotion or a raise. Personally, she hoped he would prefer the raise.   

Une picked her way through the rows of desks to the elevator.  She refused to acknowledge that she was taking a round-about route, that she was purposely avoiding one, currently-empty chair.  She refused to acknowledge that she might not be able to stop herself from looking at the neatly cluttered desk, with its perfectly piled stacks of papers and small line of pens.  And that she might not be able to resist a guilty moment of wondering what the office would be like if Trowa Barton was not there, head resting on his fist as he wrote, working quietly, unhappily sometimes, well into the evening.  She refused to accept that the idea made her shudder.  Preventers were lost all the time.  It was part of the job.  She mourned, they mourned, they moved on.

Pilots, however, were not just Preventers, and there weren’t a lot of them left to lose.

Une stepped into the elevator when it came, leaning back against the wall as it jolted.  She was lucky none of the Preventers could read her thoughts; she was lucky that she had a pretty damn good poker face.  There were enough rumors about her and Barton as it was.  Yes, she treated him a little differently, but Trowa Barton was her newest operative.  He was the last pilot to attempt adjustment to a part-civilian, part-military life, and only one of two who had spent most of that life in battle.  He had spent much of his time as a mercenary: free from all rule except for the dollar.  And then he was a pilot: free from all rule except the goal.  Structure was new to him; regulation was new to him, and Une had to make sure that he adjusted well.  Trowa Barton would not be the first veteran to struggle with the idea that his actions now had consequences.  Although he might be the youngest.

There was also the small fact that, in many ways, Trowa was still a mystery to her.  She knew very little about his childhood, apart from being mercenary.  She had no idea if there was a trigger she needed to watch out for.  And as he wasn’t the most forthcoming man she’d ever met, she had to be particularly cautious.  And particularly observant.  Watching him was the only way Une would ever know him.       

It did make the Preventers talk though.  Quietly, because Une didn’t fully coddle him and on occasion had reprimanded him just as severely as Maxwell.  She did wish he would misbehave a little more though.  The whispering might stop then. 

The elevator rose steadily, past the training floor.  It was odd to think that only a few hours ago, she had stood in that room, Lena safely in a cab and Trowa not so safely in heels and skirt, and wished them luck.  It was odd to think that a few hours ago, she had thought they had Kader.

The elevator jolted to a stop.  Une stepped out and into the brightly lit, tiled hall.  The clicks of her heel echoed behind her as she passed grey after grey door, stopping finally at the last one before the corner.  There was nothing to distinguish it from the others, and she hadn’t been up here enough to warrant remembering it, but Une remembered all the same.   She reached for the handle, and found her fingers quivering.  Une clenched her fist and willed the shaking to stop.  _Get it together.  You’ve done this before.  You don’t have the time or the luxury, and there is nothing here that you wouldn’t have seen in the war.  Deal with your fallen.  It’s part of the job._             

Une gave the door a sharp push.

The fast swing startled the white-washed office’s only occupant.   He jumped backwards from the desk he had been bent over, dropping a phone.  Panting, he adjusted his round, metal rimmed glasses on his narrow face.  Running a hand thoroughly scraggly red hair, making it stand up even more awkwardly, he tugged on the white coat he wore over a dress shirt and trousers.

“Jesue Une, I was just about to call you.  Talk about ESP.”  Smirking slightly, Une picked up the phone and set it back in its cradle.   

“I thought you didn’t believe in ESP, Vince.”  . 

Vince frowned and pushed his glasses up his nose.  “I’m undecided about the realistic possibilities of a person possessing the proper brain functioning to utilize extrasensory perception.”  Une rolled her eyes.  He _always_ sounded to like a disgruntled college professor when he couldn’t understand something.  _Are all PhDs sarcastic assholes when it comes to being wrong?_

“You said you were about to call me?”  Vince nodded, tugging at the neck of his lab coat.  Une frowned; he always tugged at _something_ when there was something he _didn’t_ want to tell her.  “Well?”

“Well, yes, but if there’s something you came up here to discuss with me, we could handle that first.”

“Vince, don’t play.  What were you going to call me about?”

“I’m sure it’s not nearly as important as whatever brought you up here.  So what’s up?”

She shook her head.  “Wounded operative.  They always come _here_.  I haven’t seen him.  I haven’t gotten an accurate idea of how extensive his injuries are.”  Vince tugged at his sleeve and threw a short glance to the partially closed door behind him. 

“Oh.  Yes.”

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“You’re tugging." 

“So?”

“You always tug on your coat when you have something you don’t want to tell me because you’re scared I’ll flip out."

“I don’t.”

“Yes, Vince, you do.  You always do.”

“No, I don’t,” he said, continuing.  Une grabbed his wrist lightly.

“You’re doing it right now, Vince.”  Vince stared at the hand holding his wrist.  Sighing, he pulled from her grip and stepped back.  He rubbed the back of his hea 

“It’s nothing bad.  Not, not really.  It’s just, well, it’s odd.”

“Odd?  In what way?”

“Une, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said.  Eyebrow arched, Une watched him as turned back towards the partially open door.  She followed him.

She knew it was a little awkward, and a logistical nightmare, to have a fully-operational infirmary in the Preventers’ headquarters.  They weren’t officially part of any military or government faction, received no funding from corporations or government agencies in return for services and loyalty.  So it seemed ridiculous to have to pay the astronomical bills that came with the equipment and staff when there were perfectly good hospitals around.  Of course, Une had good reason for everything she did for the Preventers. 

Hospitals were a liability.  Hospitals asked too many questions, followed too many rules, and were far too on staying out of the eyes of the law.  They had no understanding of the need for secrecy and confidentiality in the face of exposure.  She would send an operative to the nearest hospital for small matters: a minor wound received during a small mission, an injury during training, general illness.   But for these occurrences—serious injuries or assaults during a highly covert, classified operation—Une would much rather have her men and women looked after by their own, by physicians she knew she could trust.   

Physicians like Vince.  Une had met Vince Seranto during the war.  He had been recruited from a private civilian practice and sent to treat casualties coming off the front line.  He was very good, one of the best in fact, even if his personality left something to be desired.  Une had made sure to keep in contact with him after the war, and when she realized that having medical staff on hand at the Preventers was a good idea, he had been the first one she called.  If she could trust him with wounded soldiers in the grass, she could sure as hell trust him with her operatives after a mission. 

Sometimes, she didn’t even mind having to put up with his quirks. 

Vince held the door open for her.  She stepped in.  The door latched quietly behind them.  Glancing around the room, she realized that she had never actually come back here before.  Everything was oddly new and sterile.  The off-white walls matched eerily with instruments and machines she couldn’t even begin understand.  Her eyes lingered on a tray of particular sharp looking items, and very long needles.  One of them was slightly out of line and she swore she could see a small drip of liquid balancing on the pointed tip.  Une bit back a shudder and looked away.    It was then that she noticed it: a black cloth draped over the lens of a security camera.

“That’s illegal, Vince,” she said.  Vince turned and arched his eyebrows curiously.  Lady Une gestured at the covered camera.  “I could have you arrested for that.”

He adjusted his glasses.  “As if.  No one would take this job and do it as well as me.  Besides, I was going to take it off.”

“Before or after I threatened you?”

“After I finished my examination,” he answered.  It was Une’s turn to lift her eyebrows.  Vince shrugged.  “Standard procedure.  Full examination for a full write-up of main and minor injuries.  For sake of privacy and confidentiality, if that involves disrobing, I toss that cloth over the camera until I’m done.”

“Someone might think you’re using these blackout moments to violate the doctor/patient relationship.”

“Don’t even joke like that.  I would never risk my license for something like sexual relations with a patient, healthy or otherwise.”

She held up her hands.  “I’m just letting you know what someone else might think.”

“Like who?  The dude you have watching the cameras?  He’s the reason that I use the damn cloth.  I don’t trust the weirdo you put in charge of the camera wall.”

“I know and I already ran his background, again, as you requested.  Stop taking hits at security, Vince.”

“I will when he stops weirding me out whenever I go downstairs for lunch.”

“I’ll mention it to him,” she sighed.  Shifting her weight, she folded her arms.  “Can I assume that you had finished the examination when I came in?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then why isn’t it off now?  You said it was only for examinations, so it should come down.  Now.  Before we both get in trouble,” Une said, crossing to the chair strategically placed beneath it.  She had one foot on the seat when Vince grabbed her by the wrist.

“It has to do with the odd thing,” he admitted slowly.  Une, stepping off the chair, turned towards him.

“Think it’s time we got to the point, Vince.” 

Vince plucked at his coat once before nodding.  He crossed back to the bed, Une a few steps behind him.  There was a pale curtain circling the bed.  Vince glanced back at her once before pulling it aside quietly.

There was no IV dripping a life-saving solution into him.  There was no heart monitor beeping rhythmically as he moved between wakefulness and death.  There as only Trowa, laying in the bed.  His breathing was deep and even, lips parted slightly.  The usual tension that pulled at his expression was absent, leaving his face unusually calm.  He looked younger than he did, sitting at his desk as every day.  Except for the bloody, swollen lip, and the dark bruise already forming from chin to jaw, Une could swear he might have just wandered up here and fallen asleep. 

“I cut most of the clothes off of him,” Vince said quietly, gesturing towards another chair.  “They were soaked and sticking to him when he got here.” 

Une crossed to it and picked through the ruined outfit.  They were drenched, pieces still thawing in the warm room.  Trowa’s heels were on the seat too.  Une dropped the cloth and picked one of the shoes up.  She turned it over in her hands.  It was scuffed badly. 

“I think he slipped in, in those.  Probably on ice.  He’s got a nice sprain going and took a good crack to the head.”

“There’s transcription of a struggle,” Une admitted, setting the shoe down.  Over the back of the chair there was a black coat, and not the one she had given him when he left.  She ran her fingers over it. 

“He’ll probably have a concussion on top of everything else.  Scratches, bruises, a good fever.  He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t develop pneumonia, or at the very least the flu.”

“I’m waiting for you to hit the ‘odd’ part Vince.  I sent him out in these clothes, I got the transcripts,” Une said without looking back at him.  She had picked up the shirt again and was frowning at the rip.  It was too jagged to come from medical scissors.  _It looks like someone ripped it opened._

“I know that.  And I know you’d kick me in the head if I brought you down here for stuff you knew.  No, what’s odd is something I found after I started examining.  Maybe I should have called you right away, but I thought I should treat him first.” 

“Good call.  What did you find” she asked, dropping the shirt and going back to the bed.  There was an uncomfortable drop in her stomach as she approached, one that only worsened when Vince reached for the blanket that covered Trowa to the neck.  “Vince.”

“I’m only taking it down a bit.  You’re not going to need to see much farther.”  He paused, glancing at her. “You might want to sit down.” 

Une frowned.  She had seen people’s heads shot off.  What could she possibly see in a med room that would make her want a chair?  “Just show me.”

“Okay.  I warned you.”  Vince pulled the sheet down Trowa’s chest carefully.  Trowa shivered slightly, head rolling to the side, but remained asleep.

Une’s lungs suddenly seemed to stop.  Her mouth, thankfully, remained closed, if only because her body had locked up entirely.  She stood there, the blood pounding in her head, trying to match everything she knew to everything she was seeing, and found herself was unable to.  Une finally let out a low, long sigh, body unlocking with the rush of breath.  She could feel her knees shaking and suddenly wished she had the damn chair.   

“You okay,” Vince asked.  His voice cut through the heavy pounding, nearly making her jump.  “You look a little pale, Une.” 

“I’m fine,” she said, slightly amazed by how steady her voice was.  Years in the military were good for a few things at least.  “I’m fine.  Just.”

“Shocked.”

 _Fucking startled out of my god damned mind._ “Yeah.”

“So you didn’t know about it either then.”

“You’re damn right about that.”  Running a hand through her hair, she looked from him to Trowa and back again.  Her mind tried to turn over a dozen things but finally latched onto one problem.  Something immediate, something she could ground herself on.  “How?  How’d he hide it?  I mean, his physical—”

Had Une gotten his physical?

She had to.  It was standard protocol for Preventers.  Upon completion of the interview and background checks, and after the contract was finalized, every operative got a physical.  They had to pass, within a certain degree, certain requirements.  Most of the physicals were conducted by Vince; a few were handled by other medical staff.   But every physical came with a final report on the health and physical capabilities of the operative.  Every report reached her desk for finalization. 

There were no exemptions.

_I would have read about this.  I know would remember this._

“You’ve got me,” Vince said with a shrug.  He rubbed the back of his neck.  “I mean, I’ve seen so many, I don’t even really remember seeing him.  But I’d remember this.”  _Could he have slipped past?  No, he couldn’t.  He wouldn’t._ “Then again, I’m not the only one doing them.  Might have been Erica who did his, or Samu, but they sure as hell would have mentioned it to me.  I mean, Erica can’t keep a secret for her life.”

Une had stopped listening.  She looked down at Trowa, his face twisting with mild discomfort for a moment.  Trowa was a mystery to her, but there were a couple of things she knew.  Trowa was a private person.  A very private person.  He kept personal things, and more importantly secrets, apparently, very close.  Closer, perhaps, than most espionage experts would.  He didn’t like probing, he didn’t like sharing. 

He was also a former pilot: an expert in combat and strategy, a weapons specialist and—how could she have forgotten—a _hacker_.  Une frowned.  What would he do, what would _she_ do, to protect a secret?  A very big, very altering secret?  One that ran the risks of judgment or prejudice?  Even cruelty?  What would she do if that secret was threatened?  _Anything I damn well could.  Weasel my way out of physical, weasel my way into the system and write it myself.  I’d do whatever it took._

Une couldn’t.  Une didn’t have to, but Trowa did.  And worse, Trowa could.  He was very good at it, as she well remembered.  He probably had been very carefully.  He probably hadn’t planned on getting caught.   Une was pretty sure he hadn’t planned on being assaulted, either.

“--So I really have no idea.  Then again, I might not have seen him--”

“Said that,” she said.  Vince slipped into silence.  Une looked down at Trowa for a little bit longer, trying to piece together how he managed to slip past everyone.  The Preventers’ system wasn’t weak by any means.  She had learned where OZ had not.  And as good as he was, Trowa couldn’t be that good.  Not by himself anyway.

Part of the puzzle clicked into place.  Une crossed her arms tightly over her chest.  How dare they?  How dare they help him commit a felony?  How dare they keep her in the dark?  Trowa might have been their friend, but he was her operative.

“Does anyone else know,” she asked finally.  Vince shook his head. 

“No,” he said, pulling the cloth back up Trowa’s body when he let out a small noise.  Une could see the small mounds beneath it.   “It’s only me tonight.  And I covered up the camera right after he was set down, so there should be no footage.  The only one who might know is the guy who brought him in, but that coat was wrapped pretty tight—”

Guy?  “Which guy?”

“Shit, Une.  You know I’m bad with names.  He, he had brown hair, braided down his back I think--”

“Maxwell.”  With a nod, Une turned away from the bed and headed towards the door.  Vince hurried after her. 

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I need to see the operatives that were with him.  Now.”  Une paused for a moment at the door, looking at him over her shoulder.  “No one else comes in here, is that understood?  This does not get out.”

“Done.  No one comes in.”

“Call me when he’s conscious enough to hold a conversation.”

“That might be a while,” Vince admitted.  Une stared.  “He woke up some when I was getting the clothes off.  Wasn’t happy, starting struggling, so I gave him a mild sedative before he hurt himself.”

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” 

“Not a scratch.  He wasn’t fighting that hard, and the meds hit him pretty hard.  And considering what he’s been through, I don’t really blame him.”

Une nodded slowly. “Keep an eye on him, and let me know if anything changes.”  Vince nodded, turning back to the bed once she headed towards the hall.

Une hurried down the hall to the elevator, hitting the button with her fist.  She tapped her foot impatiently as it labored to her floor, and tapped it even more fiercely as it took its dear sweet time descending.  By the time she was making a bee-line through the desks, her anger was already on the verge of boiling over.

 _When I get my hands on them._ If they weren’t in her office now, she would hunt them down like dogs.

Eric noticed her mood even before she reached the door.  Brave kid that he was, he leapt up and headed her off before she got to the door. 

“I, I found them, and they’re waiting in your office.”

“Good,” she snapped, hoping afterwards that he realized she wasn’t angry at him. “Continue taking messages.  I need to talk to them and I’m not to be disturbed”

“Yes ma’am.”  Une thanked him shortly before skirting around him.  _If one of them even dared to sit down—_

“Ma’am,” Eric called.  Une stopped, hand on the handle, and breathed.  She liked Eric, she would not yell at Eric.  Eric only interrupted her for good reasons.  Sighing she turned. 

“Yes, Eric?”

Eric glanced down at his hands and the bundle that was suddenly in them.  Une would recognize the cloth anywhere.  He held out the crumpled uniform to her.  “I know you’re busy, but maintenance brought this up while you were gone.”  Une took the uniform silently.  “He said he found it in the men’s showers upstairs.”  Yes, someone would have found it, now wouldn’t they?  Une needed to consider lockers. 

“Thank you, Eric.  I know who’s these are.”  Une turned with the bundle in hand.  Trowa obviously hadn’t had enough time between changing and leaving to fold his clothes, and certainly no time since coming back.  Honestly, she couldn’t imagine him ever leaving his things in a heap if he had the time. 

Then again, folding the shirt and pants would have made it that much harder to hide the black corset.  In a pile, wrapped up in a sleeve and pant leg, it was a bit harder to see at a glance.    

The four men in her office jumped, some more noticeably than others, when she threw her door open and slammed it shut.  She didn’t so much as glance at them until she was behind her desk.  Dropping the bundle of clothes on her desk, she glared at them.  They stood close together, as if they had been talking quietly just before she came in.  All of them looked at least a little nervous. 

“How long,” she asked, gripping the wood and leaning over her desk   “How long did plan on not telling me?

“Lady Une--”  Zechs began.   

Une cut him off. “I don’t care if he was a pilot.  He’s one of my operatives now, damn it—”

“Une.”  Heero tried.

“How dare you keep this from me?  How dare you help him?”

“Une--”

“Do you even realize how much trouble a felony actually is?  And you all did commit a felony!”

“Une!”

“Don’t you dare interrupt me.  I’ve got a short fuse, Chang,” Une snarled.  Wufei, leaning over the desk himself, snarled straight back.

“We didn’t know either.” 

She blinked, the words hanging loosely in the air. 

“What?”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                       *----*----*

Trowa _throbbed_.  His entire body pounded as a single hurt, which he hadn’t thought possible.  The smallest noise, the tiniest sensation, sent lancing pain from his skull down his spine to every inch of skin and nerve.  If he dared twitch a finger or flex a muscle, knives of white hot agony flared across his body.  Paralyzed him before settling, and then paralyzed him again when he drew a ragged breath. 

_Wh…What the hell happened?_

Slowly, the pain began to subside.  If, and only if, he stayed perfectly still, breathing slowly but shallowly, he could feel the world past the threshold of pain.  His sight was gone for the moment, eyelids too heavy to open, but there were other feelings to explore.  The semi-familiar sensation of a cold cloth beneath his aching back and across his body, for instance.  And there was a cool, soft something underneath his aching head.  Sheets, he realized, and pillow.  Trowa risked a slow head turn, and, despite the nausea, he felt the cool cloth sink gently beneath his burning cheek.  Definitely.  Which meant that Trowa was most likely in a bed. 

But where?  A bedroom?  A hotel room, perhaps? No.  Those places had beds, but they  didn’t account for the strong smell overwhelming him.  Trowa tried to focus on it.  It smelled like cleaning solution, bleach, but with an undertone that reminded him of a doctor’s office.  A sterile smell.

A sterile smell, like a doctor’s office.  Sheets, and a pillow.  A bed at a doctor’s office— 

“Hospital” sprang to mind.  Gasping, Trowa shot up from bed, and then immediately regretted the action. 

A debilitating wave of nausea washed over him.  Trowa could practically feel what little color he had draining from his face.  He dropped back to the bed, hissing as pain flared from the back of his head.  On his back, with his eyes unprotected, the fluorescent lights bore into him.   Trowa covered his eyes with his hands.  He felt his fingers tremble against his face.   Trowa shivered.  His breath came out in shaking gasps.  And as his chest rose and fell rapidly, he realized that he felt unnaturally cold, and that the sheet felt unnaturally sharp against him.  It took him a minute to realize why.   

Trowa wasn’t wearing any clothes.

Trowa yelped without fully realizing that that was the sound escaping his throat.  The noise was loud enough to startle someone because he heard the not so distant sound of smashing ceramic.  Trowa yanked up the sheet before thinking about just how weak a response it was.  The cloth was beneath his chin when a head poked around the door.  Trowa didn’t recognize the face, and for the moment the face apparently didn’t recognize him.  It looked at Trowa with wide, surprised eyes, the eyebrows raising high enough to disappear into his hair.

“So that was you.  You‘re awake.  That’s good.  I was starting to get a little worried.  That sedative wasn‘t all that strong,” the face said, moving into the room while wringing a towel in his hands.  The browned towel dribbled coffee.  The man tossed it aside, onto a pile of wet clothing sitting on a chair, and took a couple steps towards the bed.  They were slow and careful, but that didn’t stop Trowa from unconsciously pushing himself back.  Bringing the sheet with him.  The other stopped.  

Trowa swallowed, holding the sheet in tight, trembling hands.  _What the hell is going on?  Where am I?  And where are my clothes?_

“Where are my clothes,” Trowa asked.  He couldn’t believe how badly his voice shook, or how high it sounded.  He sounded sick, shaken with cold, perhaps even fever.  He sounded _vulnerable_. 

Vulnerable was not how he wanted to sound while he was naked.

“Calm down, alright?  You’ve been through a lot and you really should lay back and relax,” the other said, attempting to sound soothing.  Trowa’s pulsed spiked with fear and irritation. 

“Where are my clothes,” Trowa asked again.

The man ignored his question and took a step forward, adjusting his glasses.  Trowa forced himself to not slid back any further. 

“I'm Vince, by the way.  Vince Seranto.  Do you re—”

“Vince Seranto,” Trowa interrupted, sheet held tight as he snarled.  “Where are my clothes?”

“Well, about that,” he started, tugging at the sleeve of his coat.  Vince glanced towards the scrap-covered chaired. “I had to cut them off of you while you were unconscious, so I could examine you.”

Trowa’s body stiffened.  _He did what so he could do what to me?_

“You—”

“Look, I’m sorry, but it was the only to--”

“The only way to what?” Trowa demanded, ignoring the way his voice rose.  “What the hell did you do to me?  Why the hell did you have to cut off my—”

He wasn’t sure exactly what triggered it.  Perhaps it was the red cloth, or the scuffed high heeled sandals sitting so innocently on the chair.  Either way, Trowa realized as he looked at them that he couldn’t breathe, but he could _feel_.  A cold rush of air and the splitting pain of his head smacking into ice.  A heavy, hot weight crushing his throat.  Cold, hard fingers tearing, kneading, probing.  Hot puffs of air against his ear as someone whispered in his ear.   Trowa’s mouth opened silently.  It couldn’t.

But of course it could.  Trowa took a harsh gulp of air.  The pounding in his head lessened and suddenly he could hear the low baritone again, the one that had followed as he was dragged underneath consciousness.  Worse, he could hear the yelling.  Familiar and safe, warm even in its fury.  He could hear them calling him, swearing at him, yelling orders and encouragements as they moved him.  He could hear someone’s heartbeat again as he was carried.

_No.  No, no, no, it can’t.  They didn’t, they couldn’t have!_

Trowa wasn’t aware of how badly he was shaking until Vince lightly touched his shoulder.  Trowa lashed out, nearly breaking his nose.  Vince had expected something, because he ducked beneath the swing and somehow managed to ease Trowa back into bed.   His hands gripped the tops of Trowa’s shoulders awkwardly. 

He knew.  The bastard knew, too.

“Easy now.  I’m not going to do anything,” Vince said carefully.   Trowa squirmed, trying to break his hold and failing.  “You need to stop that before you hurt yourself.”

“Let me go.  I want to get up,” Trowa demanded, voice high and shaking.  His heart hammered in his chest. 

“I can’t do that.  Now just lie still and let me take a look at you.”

Trowa bit back a frightened snarl.  “I thought you did that.”

“Call a second opinion if you want,” Vince said.

Trowa didn’t want “a second opinion.”  Trowa wanted out.  He wanted out of this bed, out of his room, out of this building.  Now.  Preferably clothed.  Trowa struggled against Vince’s hold and hated himself.  How could this slip of a man, who knew nothing about pressure points or joint locks, keep him down so easily?  How could Trowa be this weak?  His lungs burned for air.  Trowa fought the urge to lie back and gasp for as long as he could.  Eventually, black lined the edges of his vision and Trowa had to stop.   He lay back, panting and shivering against sweat-drenched sheets.  Vince’s hands lingered for a moment, just until he was sure Trowa wasn’t going to try for a mad dash to the door.  Trowa’s chest hurt too much to consider it much of an option.

Vince straightened, hands coming down to his sides.  “It’s really in your best interest to just stay still, you know.” 

Trowa glared at him as he crossed to a small table.  When he could breathe, he was going to curse him.        

“Now,” he said.  He plucked something from the table and brought it back to the bed.  A thermometer spun between his thumb and forefinger.  “Open up.”  Trowa ground his teeth.  Did he actually expect Trowa’s compliance?  Now of all times?  _The only reason I’m even in this bed still is because I can’t get up._ “Please don’t make me for you.  We’re both reasonable adults here, and I really don’t want to add ‘dislocated jaw’ to my report.”  As if he would even get a hand around Trowa’s face.  Still, to get him away that much sooner, Trowa opened his mouth a fraction.  “Now was that so hard?”

If only he could get up.  If only.  Sliding the thermometer into Trowa’s mouth, Vince set it under his tongue and forced his jaw close with a tap.  Trowa was horribly tempted to bite him.

“Now keep that under there for about five minutes.  And don’t move, and certainly, don’t get up.  I’ll be right back.”  Trowa glared after the white coat and white door that closed behind him as he left. 

Trowa laid his head back and winced at the pain that shot down his spine.  Closing his eyes dulled the pain, but did nothing for his suddenly overactive mind.  Feral eyes smiled down at him.  Heavy voices whispered in his ear.

Shooting up from bed was not going to help his pounding head, Trowa needed to remember that.  At least he managed to catch himself before he smacked his head into the bed when he crumpled again.  Trowa ground his teeth.  Everything hurt, and everything made it hurt worse.  The gently humming lights hurt his eyes, but if he closed his eyes, the voices waiting behind his eyes hurt him worse.   Sneering, Trowa turned onto his side.  He curled his legs close to his chest and pulled the pillow over his head. 

_Well.  This is mildly better._

Pillow pressed firmly over his head and a thermometer beneath his tongue, he took a long look around.  Trowa had never really been in a hospital before.  Or a doctor’s office for that matter.  He had always handled his own injuries himself, for obvious reasons.  This was, really, the first time he had an opportunity to see what it was like, and he was not impressed.  The room felt alien and cold.  Sterile.  Dead.   White walls, white ceiling.  White bed with a white mattress and white pillows and a whitish blue screen wrapped around it.  The white, however, was much better than all the metal.  Steel tables and trays.  Steel, sterile instruments that glinted and gleamed under the lights.  The only thing that wasn’t completely uncomfortable looking was the chair sat in the corner.  The one covered with the scuffed shoes and the remains of the clothes Vince had cut off.

_I need to get out of here._

There were a couple of underlying problems with that.  Besides the fact that if he lifted himself up even just a bit he felt as though he was going to lose everything in and around his stomach, he had nothing to wear.  There was also the fact that there, on the wall, was what seemed to be a mounted camera, covered at the moment with black cloth, but who knew how sheer that was?  _Sheer enough_.  And of course, even if he had clothes and wasn’t able to be tracked, there was still Vince in the next room.  Trowa could hear him, either talking to himself or on the phone. 

He wasn’t getting out, not anytime soon anyway.  So Trowa pushed the pillow down over his ear and looked around again.

His eyes lingered on the jacket.  It hung over the back of the chair.  Dark colored, probably black but he couldn’t quite tell.  Most likely wool to keep off the wet.   The end of it pooled on the floor; it had to be about ankle length.  His eyes narrowed.  Trowa knew this coat, from somewhere.  He recognized it.  It wasn’t his, he knew, but it was someone’s.   

 _Heero’s_ , he realized.  It was Heero’s jacket.  Trowa remembered, faintly, how the van door nearly snapped shut on it after Trowa had left the van.  Heero’s jacket was on the chair.  Why?  It must have come with Trowa up here, wherever here was.  It must have been wrapped around him.  It must have been Heero’s hands that picked him up and shook him.  No, wait.  That had been Duo.  Trowa could still hear him, cursing as he shook Trowa into barely-conscious.  Heero must have taken him from Duo and wrapped him in his own coat.  Heero must have tried to warm him.  Carry him perhaps.  And felt him. 

Trowa’s body tightened.  His fingers dug into the pillow and his teeth into the glass of the thermometer.   Heero knew.  Heero had felt, and probably told.  They knew, they _knew_.  It wasn’t supposed to be this way.  They weren’t supposed to know!

“What are you doing?  Is it too bright in here for you?”  Vince called.  The lights dimmed; Trowa let his hand relax about the pillow.  “Sorry about that,”  He said before pulling the pillow away from Trowa’s head.  Trowa let out a low, pained growl. Vince ignored it, leaning over and taking the thermometer carefully. 

“102.  At least it’s not any higher.”  102?  Trowa couldn’t remember the last time he had a fever. 

Vince turned Trowa onto his back as gently as he could, keeping his hands on his shoulders as he rolled Trowa’s body slowly.  Trowa bite into his tongue to stop a hiss of pain. 

“Yeah I know.  I’ll give you something for it in a minute.  Look over here,” He said.  Trowa glanced towards him.  The penlight shined directly into his eyes.  Trowa hissed again.  “I know.  Just try to follow it, okay?”  He could barely see it.  “Concussion.  You smacked your head pretty hard.  I’d be more surprised if you didn’t have one.” 

Trowa closed his eyes as Vince dragged a stool over.  He flinched at the sharp squeak of the legs on the tile floor.  Vince had only been sitting for a moment, writing on a clipboard, when he dropped it. “Damn it.  Well, at least it wasn’t coffee this time.”  Trowa opened one eye and watched Vince hurry out of the room.  He left the door open this time, and with the angle of the bed, Trowa had a decent view of another door.  Trowa watched him open it. 

As if this night could not get any worse.  Une stepped into his office from the hall.  She didn’t look happy.  _That makes two of us._

“How is he,” she asked, walking past him.  Vince muttered something under his breath but followed. 

“Well he’s conscious.”  Vince answered.  She paused, glancing over her shoulder.  “What?”

“And?”

“And he has a concussion, and he also has a 102 degree fever.  Which is not surprising at all.”

“I see.”

“And I think he’s damn close to having a panic attack.”

Une stopped.  Trowa only had one eye open, so he wasn’t able to tell if Une  had noticed him watching her or not.  It didn’t matter.  She turned to Vince and dropped her voice low enough that he could barely hear.  He caught a word, “alone” once or twice.    Vince pushed up his glasses.  He looked between them for a moment before nodding.  Lady Une nodded back before turning and stepping inside.  Vince shut the door behind her.

There was silence.  Even his own breathing was mute beneath the heavy quiet.  Une stared at him, hand on her hip, and Trowa suddenly wished he had a little bit more than a sheet to cover himself with.  He fought against the impulse to pull the sheet beneath his chin.  He didn’t need to look any more vulnerable.

He had no idea what she was going to say—and his mind came up with worse and worse ideas—but “You look cold, was not it.  Trowa blinked at her slowly.  Une walked in quick, long strides to the chair and pulled off the jacket.  She handed it to him silently and even turned her back when he took it, to give at least the illusion of privacy.  Trowa slid his arms through the sleeves and hug the cool material. 

“Better?” 

Trowa nodded.  “Yes.”  Nodding, she turned back.

Une slid most of her weight to one leg and crossed her arms across her chest.  Trowa struggled against a swallow, tugging the jacket closer and crossing his arms over his stomach.  Une tilted her head a bit.  “The others will be very glad to hear that you’re awake now.  They’re all worried about you.”

“Are they,” he asked.  His voice shook, but at least it hadn’t risen yet. 

“Oh yes.  They wanted to come up here but I dissuaded them for the time being.  They should be at their desks, but they’ll visit soon.”

Come up?  Of the building, the head quarters?  _Of course.   There’s a medical lab._ Heero would never risk a hospital visit, not with a mission underway _._ There was too much information to be lost or overheard. _Besides he hates hospital.  He’d never walk into one, let alone take me._ The thought wasn’t comforting because Trowa couldn’t stop himself from wondering.  How many people had seen them come in with Trowa’s limp body?  _How many people saw? How many people fucking know?_

“Oh,” he said looking at his lap.  His voice only rose a little. 

Une’s voice was a bit softer when she spoke again.  “You left your uniform in the men’s showers.”  _Shit._   He had forgotten that.  His corset had been wrapped t so haphazardly.  “It’s sitting in my office.  I’ll return it to you when you’re released.”

He lifted his eyes slightly.“Thank you.”

Une nodded.  The silence set in.  Trowa, if he looked up through the hair that fell into his face, could the hesitancy in her.  She already knew.  He knew that she already knew.  And she had to know that he had lied.  To everyone.

“You found the corset.”  The word fell flat from his tongue.  “I couldn’t conceal it well enough.”

“You tried to.”

“I expected to have time to get it.” 

“I assumed that.  Trowa,” She started and then paused, her voice soft but with an underlying condemnation and concern.  His eyes drifted down.  “How long have you been wearing a corset?”

His wince was small.  “Une,” he began.  His control was slipping further and further from his reach.  “I don’t think-”

“You lied to me, and judging by their expressions in my office thirty minutes ago, I’m only one on an impressive list.  You lied to me, to your friends, and on an application for a law enforcement agency.  I would be well within my rights to have you arrested.  And even though I can maybe somewhat understand why, if the wrong person finds out, I could be forced to press charges against you, and I don’t want to do that.  Tell me the truth, Trowa.  I think I deserve that at least.”

 

Deserved it?  Deserved to know what he had tried to hide his entire life?  She didn’t deserve anything from him, and it took the last drop of will he had not to shout that at her.  They were his secrets.  His and his alone.  It was his past, his pain, his abnormality.  How dare she even think that he would tell her anything?  Trowa wanted to shriek at her, spill his frustration and anger and fear until his throat bled.

He didn’t.  He couldn‘t.  Trowa’s head lowered further, shoulders sinking.  She was right and that ate at him.  He had lied, to them all.  _I meant for them never to find out, not to hurt them._   And he had hurt them all the same.

“Trowa,” she sighed. 

“About 15, right around when Meteor began.” 

“That’s a long time,”  Une said after a moment.  Trowa shrugged.  He had gone much longer without one.  “I’m surprised that you didn’t suffer any medical problems, what with your activeness in the war.”

“It was easy with proper motivation,”  The proper motivation being that his body had started to “develop.”  At 15, he could no longer wear loose clothing without noticeable bulges on his chest, ones that would have been conspicuous on a boy his age and with his build. 

“And you didn’t tell anyone?”             

“It is, was, only my business.”

Une sighed heavily and sat down on the stool Vince had left by the bed.  “Damn it Trowa,” she muttered brushing hair from her face.  “How the hell did you keep it a secret this long?” 

Trowa had always thought he had kept his secret well.  There had only been a small group that ever, _ever_ knew of it.  Some knew by accident.  Like Catherine, who had walked in on him while he was changing.  Others had forced the knowledge, ripped it from him or else watched it being ripped.  He hadn’t told anyone.  _And now everyone knows.  A few hours, one night, and everyone knows._

“Trowa, how did you slip it past the medical examiner,” she asked.

Even he was amazed by how easily he had slipped his deformity past the system   The opportunity had come shortly after he arrived for his appointment and sat down to wait.  His examiner was a young woman, rather flustered and a little forgetful.  Trowa had known he would have to change into one of those open back hospital gowns.  There would be no hiding then. 

He had been sitting, on the verge of a nervous sweat, thinking of a way to escape, when she had burst in to the room, hands flapping agitatedly.  A family emergency she said.  Unavoidable.  She would see him next time, the next day bright and early.  And then she ran out.  She was in such a fluster that she didn’t notice the paperwork she had left behind.  The one that listed his name, an identification number, and a password.  It had been ridiculously simple after that.  Stay late one night, to get accustomed to the environment and the hours.  It wasn’t unusual for a new operative.  He had hacked the database in less than five minutes. 

No one had suspected.  No one even bothered to ask her if she ever got around to seeing him.  And Trowa had given them no reason to; he had filled out the report as accurately as he was able.  Just omitted a few things.

It had been perfect.  _Until tonight._

“It was quite easy, actually,” he answered.  Une shook her head after a moment. 

“You are something else, Trowa Barton.”  Trowa shrugged.  His hands clenched and unclenched in the folds of the jacket as the silence returned.  His hands were pale, veins popping up through pale, tight skin.  _What happens now,_ he wondered, watching a quiver run up his fingertips and hands.  _Everyone that I wanted to keep away from it knows.  What happens now?_

The metal feet of the stool screeched loudly against the floor when Une stood.  She nodded to herself, pushing it further away with her foot before heading towards the door. 

“I want you to stay here, under Vince’s care, and don’t give me a hard time, for the next 12 hours.  And no, you have absolutely no say in the matter,” she said in a tone that allowed no argument.  Trowa snapped his mouth shut.  “You will stay in his care for observation and examination, and you will behave, is that clear?”

“Yes ma’am,” he muttered after a moment.

“Tomorrow, when and only when Vince says that you are in no medical danger, you will be released.  And I suggest that you then take at least one day, I recommend two, for recovery.  Is that clear?”

“Yes."

“When you return for work, you will be on desk duty until as I say otherwise, is that clear?”

Trowa blinked.  He was allowed to come back to work?  He wasn’t fired, or arrested? 

“Do you understand, Trowa Barton?” 

“Yes ma’am,” he said slowly.

“Good.  At a later date, we will discuss this in more detail, privately.  Hopefully, I can prevent this from being seen by the review board.  What you lied about is not…detrimental.  You lied about personal matters that didn’t involve your name, address, social security, or past that would mean in any way that you are unfit.  But I’m confining you to your desk until otherwise told.  Just to be safe.  Is that clear?”

“I understand,” he said, and then as an after thought added, “Thank you.”

She nodded, “Now get some rest Trowa.  When they get the chance, I know they’re going to come see you, and I doubt you want to be exhausted then.”  Her voice was softer, but she still left the room in sharp, quick strides.  She closed the door behind her.  Trowa heard her talk to Vince for a moment, and then her voice drifted away.  Vince did not come into see him. 

They would come.  They would come to see him.  Eventually.  Soon.  Trowa swallowed as a fresh wave of nausea washed over him.  He slid down into the bed and curled onto his side.  He knew the questions they would ask, what they would demand of him.  Explanations.  Reasons.  Excuses.  Dragging his knees to his chest, he curled into the warm coat.  His chest hurt from the pressure but he didn’t dare straighten.  Trowa tucked his head against his chest. 

A scent wafted up from the wool.  It was gentle.  Warm and pleasant.  Human.  He breathed deeply and felt momentary relief.  A second breath and he thought he might be able to sleep. 

If he could, then perhaps he could forget, for a little while.  Perhaps, for once in his life, sleep would bring dreams, or even quiet, instead of nightmare.

_And maybe I’ll die.  It’s the same thing._


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trowa tries to get back to normal

Trowa hadn’t realized, until about two days ago, that he could hate a ceiling.  But he did: he hated his ceiling.  He hated the way the shadows moved, sliding across with the achingly slow movement of the sun, and the way it highlighted the cracks and imperfections.  He hated the way it creaked when someone upstairs walked across it.  He hated that it didn’t even have a ceiling fan to cut through noise when it was so damn quiet. 

He pulled the pillow over his head with a sneer and considered going back to sleep.  Well, just going to sleep.  He hadn’t slept well again.  Trowa hadn’t slept well for the last two, very long days.  Groaning, he rolled onto his side and peered out from beneath the pillow.  If he didn’t get up now and get ready, he would be late.  Surprisingly, he didn’t actually care as much as he usually would.  Work was not exactly a place he wanted to go to today.               

But if he had to spend another day alone in this room, Trowa would scream.  He really wouldn’t have minded it quite as much—Quatre’s popping in and out at intervals to check on him had been nice, Heero’s occasional lingering against his wall mostly welcome, and Duo’s almost incessant offerings of anything that he “needed” appreciated—if that uncomfortably tense atmosphere hadn’t settled over the room each and every time.                

Ever since Trowa had come home, leaning most his weight on Heero’s shoulders thanks to the busted ankle and nausea, there had been a black cloud over the house, or at least hanging over every room that Trowa was in.  It had followed him home from the headquarters and lingered stubbornly.  They all did their best, of course, to keep it from showing, to keep from noticing.  But it was there and it made it difficult for life to get back to normal.               

_Normal’s gone.  It was never here and it’s certainly never coming back._               

Trowa sat up, without a bout of dizziness for once, and swung his legs over the side.  Normal.  Before, “normal” had been his paranoia tell him that they talked behind his back, disgusted by his existence.  It had been untrue, and he knew it was untrue, but the paranoia had remained.  Now, though, an awkward silence fell whenever he stepped into the room.  Glances were averted, and whispers usually followed him when he found some reason to excuse himself.  He never thought that he would actually _miss_ his delusions, but delusions were much better than the real thing.              

He didn’t want to think about it, what they thought of him now.  He didn’t want to think about Wufei’s silence, or Zech’s disgust shadowed by careful indifference.  He didn’t want to think about Quatre’s pity with soft, watery eyes; Heero’s distance and occasional curious glances; or Duo’s well-timed glares.  He didn’t want to think about them, about which was the worst, about which hurt the most.  He had thought about them enough.

There hadn’t been much else to do for the last two days, between the fever and the headaches and the nausea, but think.  He didn’t have the strength, or occasionally the will, to get out of bed more than a couple times a day.  He had really stopped trying to walk around the house the second time he nearly fell.  So he stayed in bed.  The others had understood.  They came to visit him, to check on him, but they mostly left him alone.  It hadn’t been exactly on purpose.  They all had jobs, they all had to work.  But then when they were home, they kept their distance.                             

Sometimes, Trowa preferred that, because he couldn’t handle the silence and the disgust.  And sometimes, when he was alone for too long, stared at his ceiling for too long, let his mind wander for way too long, he needed them.  And they usually weren’t there.              

He stood shakily.  Trowa’s knees shook a bit as they took on full weight for the first time in a couple of days.  A dull pain shot up his right leg from his mending ankle.  _God damned heels._ He was lucky he hadn’t broken his neck in those things.  They had probably already been returned, and Trowa was pretty sure that Lena was pissed about the scratches and scuffs.  Thankfully she couldn’t call him about it.            

Trowa walked to his dresser carefully, his steps becoming stronger and more secure little by little.  Keeping his eyes away from the mirror, he slipped out of his sleep clothes, folded them and set them aside.  He reached down and opened that same drawer as he did every morning.  The corset was on top, cleaned. Une must have done it.  She had returned his uniform, with the corset wrapped in the shirt again, just before he had gone home.  There had been no other time for him to take care of it.  It was considerate, really.  Trowa should thank her              

It was a shame, though, that all he felt was a constricting, hollowness.  He picked it up.  It was heavy in his hands.               

Trowa tossed it onto the bed and pulled his uniform from his closet.  He set them down on the bed, sighed and ran a hand over the back of his neck before dressing.   The cloth felt odd against his skin.  His stomach rolled.  _Damn nausea._ Trowa buttoned the pants and picked up the corset.  He paused suddenly and pressed his fingers carefully to his chest.  There was a good amount of bruising on his back and around his ribs.  Nothing broken and nothing cracked.  Still, there was the occasional burst of pain when he pressed a little too hard.  He should be more careful today.

Trowa slipped it on and tightened it to its usual.  He had to grip the edge of the bed until the pain dulled to a bearable level.              

The buttons of his shirt slipped through his fingers.  He had to stop himself more than once to try and get control of his trembling hands, but eventually he did.  Trowa sat down on the bed, closed his eyes for a moment as the air rushed out of him and then fumbled socks onto his feet.  He was getting the second on when he heard it: footsteps just past his door, heading for the kitchen.  Quatre, up and dressed, soon to be bustling around the kitchen like nothing had changed. 

Trowa wasn’t quite sure he was ready to interrupt that blissful ignorance.               

He stayed off the inevitable for as long as possible, fussing with his hair longer than usual.  He was glad to have the usual sweep of hair again. The safety and cover it provided.   The soft brush of it against his cheek was oddly calming, until he saw the bruises.  The shield couldn’t hide all of them unfortunately.  Angry splotches of purple, lined with a sickly yellow, spread across his cheek and down his jaw to his neck.  Spread like _fingers_.  Trowa brushed his fingers against a thick bruise cutting across the center of his throat. 

At least the split lip was healing nicely.  It had stopped bleeding days ago and was finally scabbed over.  Trowa thumbed it, just to be sure though.  Kader had left his marks on him, and he had left them well.  Even now, if he was dumb enough to close his eyes, he could feel the ghost of a hand snap across his face.  It was oddly more real than any of the other phantom touches he had.  

Trowa stepped back from the mirror and to the door.  He had delayed, and tormented himself, long enough.                              

Even with Trowa trying to be quiet, Quatre still heard him as he approached the kitchen.  He turned and smiled.  It was smaller than usual, but still mostly warm and pleased.  Trowa stopped, pinned by the gentle, hesitant expression.         

“Good morning, Trowa,” he said.  Trowa’s lips parted and closed.  Quatre tilted his head a bit.  “Are you alright?  You look ill.”  In a gesture that was so very him, and so dearly missed, Quatre set down the spoon he had been using to stir a pot and walked to him.  He slid so easily into Trowa’s personal space and rested the back of his hand against Trowa’s forehead, beneath the sweep of hair.  Trowa locked his knees. 

“You feel a little warm.”             

“I’m fine,” he managed.  Quatre worried at his lower lip but stepped back, his hand dropping to his side.  Trowa felt a spread from the abandoned flesh.                

“Are you sure?  You really shouldn’t push yourself.  I’m certain Lady Une will-”              

Trowa shook his head.  _Not another day.  I can’t handle one more day alone in this house._   “I shouldn’t.  I should go back to work.”             

“If you’re sure.”  Quatre walked back into the kitchen.  Trowa lingered by the table, running his fingers nervously over the wood.  “Breakfast isn’t quite ready yet.”             

He nodded slightly, looking at the wood.  “Can I help,” he asked.  There was a brief silence and then Quatre turned to him.  His head tilted a bit and Trowa wondered if perhaps it was the wrong thing to ask, if maybe it was too soon             

“Nothing.  Never mind,” he muttered.  Trowa walked towards his usual seat, keeping his back to him.  _Things are bad enough, idiot.  Don’t force yourself on them any more than you already have to._   Quatre caught him by the elbow and his mind stopped.  He held the joint carefully, mindful of any bruises or injuries, and spoke to Trowa’s hand when he finally opened his mouth.               

“Set the table,” he asked, his touch lingering even though his fingers trembled on his arm.  “Please?”

There was something in that voice that made Trowa’s face drain.  He could only nod, throat constricted.   Smiling as warmly as he could, Quatre stepped backwards towards the kitchen.  Trowa followed, fighting the urge to rub at his arm and keep the warmth as long as he could.  Quatre didn’t look at Trowa again as he bustled about the pot on the stove.  Trowa didn’t mind.  He busied himself with pulling mugs and glasses from the cabinets, setting them in place, and pouring coffee into three and tea into his own.       

“Trowa,” Quatre called while Trowa was setting out forks and spoons.  He lifted his head.  “Give me a hand real quick?”  Setting the spoon down, Trowa walked back towards the stove.  Quatre, smiling, held out a small spoon.  “Try this?”               

Trowa looked at it for a moment before taking the spoon with a surprisingly steady hand.  He swallowed the lumpy porridge.  Cinnamon and nutmeg swirled pleasantly in his mouth.                

“How is it?  Too sweet?”               

Duo and Quatre both liked it just that side of “too sweet.”  “It tastes fine to me,” he said.  Quatre smiled and sighed in relief.  Trowa dropped the spoon in the sink before opening the cabinet near him and pulling down bowls.               

“Good.  I just don’t make this enough to remember all the measurements.  I really should write them down.  Hand me a bowl, please?”  Trowa held out one of the bowls.  Quatre ladled porridge into it carefully and handed it back.  Their fingers brushed as Trowa took it.  Quatre smiled a bit as he carried it to the table. 

Trowa only got half way there.               

“Oh man, something smells really good,” Duo said. “Are you making that porridge again, Quatre?” 

Duo and Trowa both stopped.  Trowa’s fingers tightened around the bowl as a brief look of black fury flashed across Duo’s face.  If he was a different person, it might have frightened.  If he was a different person, it might have infuriated it.  It just hurt, really, to see Duo’s typical mirth flicker out and knowing that it was his fault.  Trowa kept his face carefully neutral.                 

Heero slid out from behind him.  There was no fury his face, but that didn’t make him feel any better.  There was something too blank about his face.  Too carefully controlled, as if he didn’t trust himself with his feelings.  Which he probably didn’t.  Trowa had seen him angry; it wasn’t pleasant.  Heero walked towards, quiet and casual.  Trowa still locked his knees.  He had a brief, uncomfortable worry that Heero might hit him.  He honestly wouldn’t be surprised. 

Heero’s hands rose and took the bowl from Trowa.  “You feeling alright?  You look like you’re going to drop this.”

“I’m fine,” Trowa said hands dropping to his sides.  Heero looked him over once before nodding.               

Quatre poked his head out of the kitchen with another bowl.  “Good morning, Heero.  Duo.”  Heero, after setting down the bowl at a place, walked over to him to take it.  “Oh thank you, Heero.”              

“Of course,” he said.  Trowa stepped away from the table.  Duo shook his head slightly and ducked around Heero to take the next. 

Trowa slid around to his chair and watched.  Duo handled the rest of the bowls, so Heero finished setting out utensils and napkins.  Trowa gripped the back of his chair and wondered it if would be extremely rude to go to work without breakfast.  All the cinnamon suddenly made him nausea.  But when Quatre sat down, Trowa dutifully pulled out his chair.  

Duo took a deep sniff of the porridge.  “I love it when you make this stuff.  Always puts me in a good mood,” he said, sighing pleasantly after the first mouthful.  Quatre flushed.  Heero smiled a bit over his mug.              

“I’m glad you like it.  I wasn’t sure about it this morning.  Trowa helped me out this morning."               

Trowa really wished he hadn’t mentioned that.              

Duo choked on his porridge.  Heero glanced at him over his own spoonful.  Trowa kept his head down, trying to get his throat to loosen so he could actually eat.                

Silence settled, the same tense quiet that now always took over.  He missed the old companionable quiet of their meals.  The delicate calm, the pleasant chink of china.  They ate now with air thick with tension and irritation.  Trowa’s fingers tightened around his spoon.  The hatred and discomfort were real instead of unpleasant byproducts of his paranoia.  Trowa’s fingers tightened around his spoon.  _This is your fault._   His hand shook.  _This is all your fucking fault._   If he had just gotten through the night like he was supposed to.  _You ruined everything._               

Quatre cleared his throat and the tension lifted a little.  Trowa breathed a sigh over his bowl, Duo took a sip of coffee, and Heero glanced towards Quatre as he opened his mouth.  Trowa hoped the conversation was a long one.  It would be much more pleasant.              

“By the way, tell Lady Une that I should have all the information she needs by tomorrow,” Quatre said.              

Heero blinked slowly.  “Really?  That soon,” He asked finally.  Trowa took a bite of his porridge.  It was bitter.                

“It’s not so soon.  I could have had it weeks ago, but I needed to tread carefully.  He’s suspicious, but I think I have everything she needs.”              

“Good.  Very good.  We’ll her today.  She’ll be pleased."               

Duo nodded.  “She better be.  She’s been in the bitchest mood recently.”  Trowa dug his spoon back into his breakfast harsher than he meant.  She had been worse than bitchy, and he didn’t even need to wonder why.  “Some good news might just yank the stick out of her.”             

“That’s a great image over breakfast, Duo, thanks,” Quatre said, wrinkling his nose.              

“That’s nothing, man.  Trust me.  People have been muttering a lot worse behind her back.  Outside of the building, of course,” he said.  Quatre glanced over at Heero with his eyebrows raised.  Heero shrugged and sipped his coffee.               

“Well maybe she’ll be better after hearing this?”             

“I hope so.”

Trowa doubted that very much.  He doubted that anything, even proof that the politician she was gunning for had tried to put a bullet in someone’s head, would improve Une’s absolutely homicidal mood.  Not while Trowa was still around anyway.  And it was Trowa’s fault.  Une had been fine—or at least bearable—before.  Now, apparently, if Duo was in any way credible, she couldn’t even walk past his desk without snapping at someone.   Trowa stared in the lumps of his porridge, cheek resting on his fist and fighting back a flinch.   He ruined everything, didn’t he?  And no one was going to admit it but himself.               

He stabbed his spoon into the bowl.  No one would admit it.  Not Heero, not Duo.  Not Quatre, or Wufei, or Zechs.  Not even Une.   No one wanted to.  No one wanted to acknowledge what everyone now knew.  Instead, they skated around him.  They left him to his own devices.  Yes, he had been sick in bed, but now they kept him at a distance, when before it had been the other way.  He held them back.  Now he was pushed back.  They held him at arm’s length.  Further actually, and refused acknowledged his abnormality.  They side-stepped it, they ignored it.  They pretended that it didn’t exist, that it hadn‘t happened. 

And Trowa wasn’t used to that.  No one had ever ignored it, ignored him, like this before.  He wasn’t used to this.  _I can’t tell what they’re really thinking.  All I see is disgust, and hesitance, but they don’t say anything.  Why don’t they say anything?_  

If they were waiting for him, they would be waiting for a very long time.  And if they were trying to control themselves, well, Trowa wasn’t sure why they bothered.  He was used to that.  Screaming and cursing, even violence, were things he could understand, things he could accept.  He had experienced them so many time before.  He actually almost wished they’d scream at him, curse him.               

“Trowa,” Quatre called suddenly. “Is something wrong?”  Trowa blinked.  He looked at him before glancing down at his bowl.  There were several small puncture holes in the surface from where Trowa had stabbed his spoon in.  He didn’t quite remember doing that.                

He set his spoon down on the edge.  “No.  No, I’m fine.”           

“Are you sure,” he asked, hardly sounding convinced.  Heero and Duo watched, one more discreetly than the other.  Trowa nodded.  He sat a little straighter and looked them with his usual expressionless face.  Even now he could feel the cracks in it.              

“Yes, I’m sure.  It’s very good, Quatre, as always.”  To make his point, he picked up his spook and took a bite.  Quatre smiled.  It was a little strained, but he returned to his meal anyway.  Heero and Duo returned to theirs as well, although Duo continually looked at him when he was certain Trowa couldn’t “tell.”              

Trowa only managed to finish half of his own breakfast.  He had been sick at a quarter but had forced himself to at least make it to half.  Thankfully, Trowa didn’t have to think of an excuse.  Quatre chanced to look at his watch and swore.  He left it, sipping at his tea as Quatre stood while running fingers through his bangs.              

“I need to go,” Quatre said, running a hand through his hair.  “We have a meeting in an hour and a half, and I should really go and prep just a little more.”              

Heero nodded.  “There’s probably a lot of black ice this morning.”              

“I’ll be careful.”              

Duo smirked a bit.  “Good, because I bet some of those old geezers would be just a little too happy to hear your car ran off a bridge.” 

Quatre rolled his eyes with a smile as he stood up and pushed his chair in.  He hurried over to the door and had his coat half on when he paused and looked back at the table.               

“Could you guys—”             

“We’ll handle it, Quatre.  We pretty much always do,”  Duo said.  Quatre smiled and thanked them.  He swept up his keys and bag and hurried out the door.  The three of them flinched when the icy wind snapped the door closed behind him.  They sat at the table, Trowa sipping his tea and Heero and Duo both looking either at an empty bowl or an empty mug, until the engine turned over.            

Heero stood after Quatre had pulled away.  “Let’s go.”            

“Yeah.  Being late isn’t going to make Une any happier,” Duo sighed. 

Trowa and Duo both stood and started gathering the empty bowls mugs.  Their hands touched briefly as they both reached for Quatre’s.  Trowa spilled some leftover porridge and Duo some coffee dregs when they pulled back.  Heero sighed and went to get a towel.  Neither of them moved until after Heero was wiped up the mess and throw the towel into the trash with a grumble.  Then Trowa turned and took the bowls he had to the kitchen.  Duo followed with the mugs and Quatre’s bowl.  Duo dumped the dishes into the sink without a word.  Trowa looked over at him once while he filled the sink, but Duo was already too busy putting leftovers in the fridge to notice.              

“Done,” Heero asked a few minutes later.  Duo nodded as he closed the refrigerator door.  Trowa wiped off his hands.  “Let’s go then.”              

A hard wind whipped past them as they headed outside.  Trowa dared a look up at the sky through the icy rain.  It was heavy with grey clouds.  It would be messy all day.  Hunching his shoulders, Trowa pulled the neck of his coat closed and followed them to the car.  He glanced over at his bike with a frown.  At least it would be protected under the heavy covering he used.  _But there is no way in hell they’ll let me take it in this weather._                

“Damn.  I hope Quatre’s doing okay on the roads,” Duo said over the rain and wind.               

“Probably.  Let’s hope we do the same,” Heero answered.  He walked quickly to the car and slid into the driver’s seat.  Duo skittered behind him, slipping over the half-frozen gravel.  Sliding to a stop next to the passenger’s door, he stared at Trowa from the roof.               

“Are you getting in, or do you want to walk?”  Heero looked back at him with a hand on the ignition.  Trowa sighed and hurried over.  His shoes had almost no traction.               

He had never enjoyed riding in, or driving for that matter, a car.  It was a rather suffocating experience for him.    Convertibles were almost too confining for him.  There was just something about a motorcycle, about the connection of the body to the frame.  It was like an extension of the self: and illusion that _he_ was going down a highway at 75 mph, currents sliding across the streamline.  Cars were without body.  They were bulky and wasteful.  Too much metal, too many unnecessary parts.  Worse, they muted the world, distorted it.  They interrupted the wind, they locked the man from nature they cut through.  They were moving cages.               

Still, Trowa didn’t have much choice today.  He got in the back without complaint. 

The seat belt cut into his neck.  Trowa shifted slightly and when it refused to move, he sank into the seat and pressed his arms into his stomach.  He shivered.  A cold air was rushing through a crack somewhere, and the heat hadn’t kicked in just yet.  By the time it did, they would be so near the headquarters that it would be pointless anyway.  Trowa leaned his head against the window and felt the drone of the struggling engine.  After about five minutes, he was tempted to talk, or at least ask them to turn on the radio.  Even traffic reports had to be better than the awkward silence.  

Then the car hit a pothole and Trowa was too concerned about the ringing in his head to worry about awkwardness.               

Rubbing his head, he watched the rain fall in sheets, tensing every time the car lost traction.  It was difficult to be a passenger normally but even worse when the weather was so bad.  Their commute took ten minutes longer than usual.  Trowa was nearly fidgeting by the time they pulled into the garage, but he managed to get out of the car without exactly scrambling.                

Upstairs, Trowa felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.  Following Heero and Duo out of the elevator, he noticed a definite decrease in the movements of everyone directly around them.  He slowed, casually, to watch the other operatives and figure out the cause of the sudden slowness.  It didn’t take him long.  

They were _watching_ him, some more discreetly than others.  It wasn’t the same stares as when he had come with his hair down.  Those had been inquisitive, maybe a little shocked.  Altogether those stares had been rather innocent.  These were not.  They searched and probed.  They pierced and dissected him, searching for something.  Searching for weakness, perhaps.               

_They probably know too._                

Walking to his desk, Trowa did his best to ignore the scrutiny.  He pulled off his jacket and, draped it over the back of his chair.  It was a familiar, rough support against his back.  A pile of folders and papers sat at the end of his desk.  Like they had just a week before.  Trowa stared at it for a moment.  His pen sat beside it untouched.  Shifting slightly, he picked it up and flipped open the first folder, scanning it before beginning the first line.               

Although he did lose most of his sense of time, Trowa couldn’t fall into his usual trance.  His mind just couldn’t disconnect.  Whispers drifted around his desk, and he didn’t need to guess what they were about.  He tried to ignore them, but by the time Duo nudged him in the head for lunch, Trowa’s jaw hurt from clenching and there were several scratch marks in his desk from where his pen had gone through his papers.  He was almost thankful to have an excuse to get out of the office, even if it meant going out in the storm.                

It had taken him a little bit longer, what with the rain and the wind and the amount of people in the café, for Trowa to come back with his lunch.  Even so, when he stepped out of the elevator with his usual sandwich and tea, he stopped and watched them.  Lunch was halfway over, but they hadn’t gone down to the cafeteria.  They were gathered around Wufei’s desk, casually to the not-so-careful observer.  Trowa saw the tension.  He watched them mutter for a few seconds.  Then Heero’s eyes locked onto his, and the group rose en masse.  They headed for the stairs.  Heero lingered, watching him with a small frown, until Duo touched his elbow.  Then he too disappeared into the stairwell without a word. 

Trowa watched them leave and then stood staring at the stairwell door for a good minute.  Then he walked quietly back to his desk.  He dropped his lunch in a wastebasket along the way.  So much for hunger.  

Trowa’s focus was no better in the afternoon than it had been in the morning.  If anything, it got worse.  The whispers came back with the end of the lunch hour.  This time, however, so did the aches.  More than once Trowa had to put down his pen to hold his pounding head, and then winced as he brushed the bruised, still-sensitive skin.  His chest began to ache by the middle of the afternoon.  He kept nothing in his desk for it.  He was starting to feel feverish, but there was no way he was going to go and see Vince.  _I’ll bring a bottle from home tomorrow._                         

The afternoon stretched.  He flipped back through his paperwork several times; he had been making mistakes all day, ones he didn’t usually make.  He had been making one particular mistake over and over again for the last hour.  He was on his third copy, using a pencil—and he never used pencil—when Une strode across the floor.  He’d recognize those flats and their distinctive click anywhere.  Trowa swallowed, head bent over his work.  Perhaps she was coming to speak with him at “length” finally.  He raised his eyes when she was feet away and lowered them again once she had passed without even a look at him.  A small knot formed tightened in his stomach.               

Trowa made a point to ignore everyone else’s comings or goings for the rest of the day.  He told himself that it was because he couldn’t afford to waste anymore papers.  It was a concentrated effort.  His head was pounding at the end, but he had managed to almost finish his usual workload by the time Duo poked him in the back of the head with a pencil.  Trowa grit his teeth and rubbed the spot before turning around.  They formed a small knot around his desk.  Trowa tactfully ignored Wufei’s tactful attempt to avoid his eyes.  He hadn’t checked himself since the morning.  How bad had the bruises gotten in the last couple of hours?  If the sympathetic expression on Zech’s face was any judge, pretty bad.               

“Yes,” he asked, tilting his head.  Heero nodded towards the elevator.               

“Time to go,” _Oh_ _.  Right._   He was dependant on them tonight, unless he caught a bus, except he wasn’t sure if there even was a bus that ran near the house.  He could always take a taxi, but that was a ridiculous waste.  Of course, a ridiculous waste might be better than another car ride in awkward silence.  But not by much, and knowing his luck, it would make the situation even worse.   Trowa set the pencil down and pushed the folder aside.                

“Coming,” he said.  Trowa turned off his desk lamp, stood, and shrugged on his coat.  He zipped it up to his chin as he followed them to the elevator.  They talked softly about work as they walked and then waited for the elevator.  Trowa ignored them, scuffing his shoe lightly against the floor until the elevator arrived.  He managed to slip into the corner of the elevator.  He dug his hands into his pockets and pressed back against the wall as the elevator dropped with a jerk.  It shuddered all the way down.  Trowa was sure he wasn’t the only one happy to be out of it when it reached the cold garage.                

“Think we should tell Une about that,” Duo asked, glaring at the elevator.  “What if it plummets to the basement with someone in it?”              

“It won’t plummet,”  Zechs said.  “They’re designed to not do that, actually, if they malfunction.”               

“So how do you explain all those stories about them plummeting to the basement of office buildings?”               

Wufei frowned at him.  “When was the last time you read a story about that?”  Trowa slid out from behind Heero and waited at the edge of the conversation.  “But by all means, take it back up to warn her.  If it plummets to the basement on the way, we’ll tell her to get it looked at.”               

“I’m not taking that.”               

“Fine, take the stairs.”                

Duo sneered.  “You’re funny, Wu.  Really you are.”  Zechs shook his head.  He draped an arm over Wufei’s shoulders and pulled him back just a bit before Wufei let out a scathing retort.               

“Good night,” Zechs said.  “See you tomorrow.  Watch out for black ice.”              

“You too,” he said.  They headed towards their cars, Wufei and Zechs slipping between cars to cut across rows.  They had only cut over two when Trowa slowed.                 

“Good night,” he said.  He didn’t know if they had heard him or not, nor could he wait and see.  Heero had already started the car.                  

Trowa dozed a little as they inched home through the snow and sleet.  Heero hit black ice only once: stopping at a red light.  Heero somehow managed not to spin and not to hit the SUV stopped in front of them.  It was an impressive bit of driving, and it threw Trowa’s stomach up into his throat.  Still when they got going again, Trowa managed to at least look relaxed, sinking back into the seat while Duo swore.   He even managed to doze again.               

Gravel eventually scrunched beneath the tires, pulling Trowa from the nap he had just managed to really start.  He winced at the overheard light when the doors opened.  Suppressing a yawn, he climbed out the car and trailed behind them as they walked towards the house.  The exhaustion was a little surprising.  He always forgot how draining paranoia and loathing were.               

Quatre lifted his head from the book he was reading on the couch when they entered.  He smiled tiredly and pushed it away.                

“You look exhausted,” Duo said as Trowa shut the door and shrugged out of his coat.  Quatre shrugged.               

“So do you guys.  Long day?”               

“The longest.  You?”               

“Same as ever.  I made dinner.  It’s staying warm in the oven.  I thought it be nice if you had something warm to come home to.”               

Grinning, Duo draped his arm over his shoulders and squeezed lightly.  “You’re the best.”               

“You’re welcome.”               

“You didn’t wait to eat until we got home, did you,” Heero asked.  Quatre flushed and he sighed, shaking his head.  “You don’t have to wait for us.”               

“I know that.  I wanted it.  Besides, I wasn’t that hungry when I got home,” he said.  Heero frowned but accepted it, hanging his coat on the hook without any further comment.  Duo grinned.  He pulled Quatre to his feet and pushed him towards the table.                

“Well, since you were so nice to make dinner—”

“I almost always make you dinner.”

“—and wait for us, let me finish Cat, seriously.  Since you were extra nice today, I’ll set the table and serve and everything.” 

“You don’t have to, Duo.  I can do it, really—” 

“I insist, so move.  Go sit.  Take a load off.  Relax.”               

Quatre stumbled, laughing.  “Okay, okay.  I’m going I’m going.”  Heero shook his head and followed.  Trowa stayed.  He glanced between the table and his bedroom               

“Trowa, are you coming,” Quatre called back.  Trowa blinked.  They were watching him.  Ignoring the prickling at the base of his neck, Trowa slid himself ever so slightly towards his room with a small shake of his head.               

“I’m not that hungry, actually,” he said slowly.  Trowa ignored the angry protests of his empty stomach.  “I think I’ll just go to bed.”               

He did his best to look unaffected underneath their stares.  Quatre chewed on his lip and took a concerned step towards him.  Duo took a step back. He turned into the kitchen with a less-than-conceal grumble. 

“Are you feeling alright,” Quatre asked.               

“Tired, that’s all.”  Nodding, Quatre smiled.  The expression strained when he heard something crash in the kitchen.  Heero hurried to see what Duo had dropped.  Or possibly threw.               

“Okay Trowa.  Good night, sleep well.”              

_Not likely._ “I’ll try.  Good night.”  Trying not to look like he was retreating, even though he was, Trowa walked to his room as calmly as he could.  He paused at the door to glance over his shoulder.  Quatre noticed and waved, mouthing a second “good night.”  He nodded back, struggling with even a tiny smile, and slipped into his room.               

Trowa banged his head back against the door once it was closed and regretted it almost immediately.  His head hurt enough from the headache, bruises, and lack of food.  He rubbed his temples for a moment.  It was then that he noticed it. An odd, overbearing silence, from outside his room.  Trowa frowned.  Turning, he rested his head against the door and listened.  Nothing.  Not even the chink of china.  Were they listening?  Trowa pushed himself away and rummaged a little louder than necessary for his pajamas in the dark.  It wasn’t until he was pulling his shirt over his head that he finally heard the sound of silverware.                

They _were_ listening.               

Trowa tried not to think about that as he undressed.  He worked the corset off with shaking hands and tossed it on the dresser.  He breathed only a little easier without it.  Taking his time, Trowa pressed his fingers against his ribs, trying to judge the damage he had done to himself.  Pain flickered across his chest.  He’d have to wear it looser tomorrow.  Trowa stuffed it into the drawer and went back to getting ready for bed.

He was sitting on the bed, pulling his socks off, when he heard it.  It was soft at first but grew steadily louder.  Curious, Trowa rose, slowly to keep the mattress from creaking, and moved towards the door.  He stood against it, balanced on the doorframe, ear pressed lightly against the wood.  The voices were just clear enough.               

“Quatre, don’t make that face,” Heero said.  Trowa heard a sigh.               

“I’m not making a face.”               

 “Quatre.”               

“What?  I’m not.”              

“Siding with Heero on this one.  What’s up?”               

Trowa was surprised by how bitter Quatre sounded.  “I should ask you the same thing, Duo, with the face that you’re sporting.”               

“Hey, I know I’m wearing a face.  I happen to be extremely pissed at the moment and decided to wear my heart on my sleeve like a normal person.”             

Quatre huffed loudly.              

“Come on, Cat, tell us what’s wrong.  I mean, I could take a guess, but I’d rather you tell me.”               

“I don’t know what to do,”  Quatre sighed after a long pause.  “He’s so distant.  I don’t think I can get close enough to help him.”               

Duo snorted.  “You shouldn’t bother.  I’m certainly not.  Not until he asks.”              

 “And we wonder why he won’t talk to any of us for longer than five minutes,” Heero muttered.              

“I really don’t give a damn right now.”              

“That’s not fair, Duo,” Quatre said.               

“That attitude isn’t exactly going to make him want to talk with us, Duo.”               

“You’re not exactly tripping over yourself to chitchat with him either.”               

Trowa could almost hear Heero’s scowl.  “When he wants to talk to me, I’ll be there to listen.”               

“Because he’s always been so fucking keen to talk about his personal life.”               

Something clattered on the table.  “Stop it.  Stop talking about him like he isn’t even here,” Quatre begged.   “And for god’s sake, lower your voices.  He’s trying to sleep.” 

Silence followed.  Trowa dug grooves into the wood with his fingers.              

“I’m sorry, Quatre,” Duo said with a sigh, stabbing his plate with something that let out a loud ring.   “I’m just, I’m mad.  I think I have a right to be, you know?  I mean, he lied to us—”               

Trowa pulled away from the door, rocking back into his heels.  He balanced for a moment before staggering back.   Trowa stumbled back to his bed, dropping to the mattress, not bothering to hide his movements.  They’d probably assume he was shifting about in his sleep.  Sure enough, the murmurings quieted for a moment.  Trowa held his head as he rolled onto his side.  Soon, the conversation continued, but he was too far away to hear anything but an almost pleasant string of quiet noise. 

It was nearly another hour before the light under his door went out and there was the familiar creaking of feet on the stairs and the second floor.  He thought he heard soft “good night’s” before the creaking split and spread across the ceiling.  Quatre walking to his room, Duo and Heero to theirs.                

After another hour, Trowa still hadn’t moved.

*-----*-----*              

Trowa buried his head under the pillow.  Maybe if he stayed like that long enough, the knocker would take the hint and go away.  He could hear the knocker calling his name, asking him—more like cursing him—to at least come to his side of the door.  Trowa pushed the pillow harder over his ear.  The pounding was just barely audible.               

He knew that he was being unreasonable and causing even more of that unbearable tension that had plagued the house all week to rise.  Trowa knew that sulking underneath his pillow wasn’t in anyway productive.  But he honestly didn’t care.  He had lost all ability to care, and most of his common sense, this week.                

Turning under the pillow, he watched the gray rain pound from gray skies outside.  It might actually snow today, which would be much better after a week of half-frozen rain.  He was tired of it sneaking down the back of his coat and into his shoes, forcing him to sit through work with damp socks and shirt.  He had to admit, though, that the constant strength draining chill and gray pounding mirrored his mood with a disturbing, bittersweet perfection.                   

Trowa couldn’t explain, even to himself, his mood or responses.  Maybe it was vengeance and spite against all the silence and looks.  Ever since that night and the conversation he had overheard r, Trowa had been distancing himself.  He endured their company for no longer than a few minutes.  He politely denied any and all offers for rides to work, even when it was so slick that even Trowa wasn’t sure he’d make it.  He excused himself from conversations and nearly every single meal for the last day.  His stomach was not happy about that.  But Trowa had long since learned how to ignore hunger when there were more important things to worry about. 

The fury and spite in him approved of every connection he so indelicately cut.  How dare they speak like that, behind his back?  Where was the tact, the compassion?  They couldn’t possibly understand anything that he had gone, or was going, through, but they dared to justify their anger?  Without any understanding of his hurts, without any of the experiences he suffered?  How could they be that unsympathetic?               

But hadn’t he brought it all on himself?  Of course he had.  Trowa had held onto his secret, his abnormality, for _years_.  But secrets never lasted forever.  He knew that better than anyone.  Someone always found out.  They were _bound_ to find out because he had insisted on being close to them.  If he had just told them from the beginning, wouldn’t it have been better?  Wouldn’t a straight talk have ended more cleanly than the messing dancing Trowa had always done?  If he had confessed it cleanly, with due shame, and took their questions and accusations like a good boy, with patience and understanding, wouldn’t there have been a chance for better?  It would have at least been the higher road.  They might have at least still respected him.  Wouldn’t he be happy with at least that?               

Trowa _despised_ thatline of thought.               

He tugged the edge of the pillow over his face.  If it was just ridiculous, self-righteous spite, why did he continue to fuel it?  Why did Trowa lean against his door at night and listen for the conversations?  Why did he look for the hurt?  Why did he instigate it with his own aloofness?  It was a cycle that he perpetuated, for reasons he didn’t understand.

Why did he even care?  He had always suspected that they talked about him behind his back.  So why did he care that now it was actually true and not just a vivid delusion of his paranoia?  Why did it hurt more?  Why was it that more difficult to bear?  And if it was so painful, why did he continue to chip away at his ignorance every night?  Why did he stand at the door and listen for everything his mind had ever told him they had sneered behind his back?               

_Maybe I’m just a suck for torture._ And wasn’t that a pleasant thought?               

Trowa frowned suddenly and lifted the edge of the pillow.  It took him a moment to realize what had interrupted his thoughts.  The knocking had stopped.  Sitting up slowly, Trowa looked across the room to the door.  They had actually stopped.  Did they finally get it?  Whispers drifted past his door.  Trowa crawled towards the end of the bed and listened.                   

“No, he’s doing it on purpose,” Duo spat and sounding like he stamped his foot.              

“No, he’s not.  He can’t.  Trowa’s not like that,” Quatre argued but without most of his usual conviction.  He sounded tired..  “He’s probably just asleep.”              

“Quatre,” Heero said, sounding like he was talking about uncomfortable.  “I don’t think Zechs could have slept through that.”                

“Yeah, and Zechs can sleep through just about anything.  Except Wufei.”               

 “Duo,” Quatre said.               

“Anyway, the point is, he had to have heard me, which means he’s ignoring me.”               

“Why would he do that, Duo?”                

“I don’t know.  The same reason he’s been ignoring us all week?  Come on, even you have to admit he’s been acting really weird all week, even for him.”               

“Maybe.  I don’t know, but you can’t—”             

“Enough,” Heero said shortly, interrupting any potential fights.  “We’re late as it is.  If he’s awake, then he’ll know we’re going over to Wufei’s and Zech’s, like we promised, and that he’s invited to come along.  And if he _is_ sleeping, then we’ll leave him a note and he’ll get it when he gets it.”             

“Sounds good to me,” Duo said.  Quatre muttered something.  “Come on, you know it is.” 

“Fine.”  

The conversation ended.  They walked away, and Trowa released a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding with a sigh.  He sank onto the mattress, suddenly unable to hold himself up.  

He froze when he heard a sigh.  

“Trowa,” Quatre sighed.  Trowa could barely hear him.  “Please just be asleep.”  

Trowa held his head up even after Quatre had moved away.  He held it until he heard the distant click of the front door closing and the car pulling out of the driveway.  Then Trowa dropped it with a grunt.                               

It wasn’t exactly comfortable, lying with his head dangling off the edge of the bed.  His chest hurt from the pressure his chest, making each breath a small struggle.  And the hard angle of his head hurt his neck.  Not to mention, the mattress pushed right into the bruises stretched across his throat.  Trowa winced but didn’t move.  

He was just about to spread his arms, to see if it would make the hurt in his chest better or worse, when he heard it: scolding in the back of his head.   _“_ _Trowa Barton, are you insane?  Why are you thinking, lying on your chest like that?  You’re going to break your already broken ribs.  Why do I have such a dumb brother?  Get up, get up before you hurt yourself.”_

_That sounds like Catherine, all right._               

Trowa lifted himself, balancing his chin on his hands carefully.  Catherine would definitely say something like that.  If she knew, which she didn’t.  Catherine had no idea that he had had a field mission or that he had botched it as badly as he had.  It had seemed like a very good idea at the time, and less like a good idea with every passing day.  When she found out, because she always somehow found it, she would be angry he had gotten hurt and furious that he had been dishonest with her.    _I_ _wasn’t dishonest.  I just didn’t tell her._               

Wasn’t that what had gotten him into this situation in the first place?               

Trowa rolled onto his back.  He really should tell her.  It was only proper, and she would be less angry with him if he told her himself.  Catherine hated finding out about things that had happened to him.  And she would find out.  For some reason, Catherine always saw straight through him.  If something unpleasant happened to him, whenever something unpleasant happened to him, she could just tell, no matter how hard he tried to keep it off his face.  She called it “a woman’s intuition,” and said it was even stronger when it came to irritatingly little brothers.  Trowa called it was just a pain in the ass.  

If Trowa wanted to keep this from her, he would have to forgo all contact with her until he learned to control himself or his body healed.  Whichever came first.  The wounds could take weeks, his control even longer.  Catherine wouldn’t be able to handle weeks, Trowa knew.  She wouldn’t allow him weeks.  She tended to worry when he didn’t contact her at least once every few weeks.  And when she worried, she wrote.  Or she called.  Or worse took matters into her own hands and came over.  

Now that she had the address, she would definitely come over.                               

He should call her.  Worst case scenario, she’d lecture him for hours about his stupidity and how he needed to take better care of himself and how he couldn’t worry her like that.  Actually, now that he thought about it, that would be the best case scenario.  He really didn’t want to think worst one.  So he should call her.  She’d lecture and sneer and sigh and beg him not to do it again, and then she’d know.  She was going to find out eventually anyway.  He might as well make it easy on himself.                

He didn’t how sore he was until he stood up.  It had been almost a full week now since that night.  Every day was a little bit better than before, but the pain was still stubborn.  He pressed his hand to his back and felt tender skin and knotted muscles.  His chest was even worse.  Nothing a handful of aspirin couldn’t help.  At least his ankle was stronger.  He made it across the room with it dipping in only once.   

 

Trowa had planned on making a phone when he left his room.  Even if she wasn’t home, he would at least leave a message.  He would prefer, of course, to hear her voice.  Just for a short while.  The closer he got to the phone, the more he realized he wanted to hear her voice.  To have it run over his ear in that soothing scold she could do.  He wanted to sit alone in the kitchen with her cradled against his ear, listening to her yell and sigh and tell him he was a fool and that he needed to trust her and take better care of himself.  He wanted to hear her concern.  He needed to.

Unfortunately, he never actually made it. 

The table was between his room and phone, and on the table was a single, small piece of paper.  A little crinkled around the edges, it sat underneath a glass at Trowa’s usual spot.  He barely made it past the corner of the table before he turned and headed towards it.   Even from a distance, he knew Heero had written it.  It was short, a few lines, and written in the small, efficient style Heero was known for.  Trowa picked it up with two fingers.                                              

**_Trowa-_ ** ****

**_Went to Wufei’s and Zechs’.  Come along when you get this, if you want.  We’ll see you later._ ** ****

**_Heero_**                 

Trowa frowned at the note.  It was more of an order than a request and he was tempted to ignore it simply because of that.  Really, though, what was the point, he wondered as he dropped it back to the table.  It wasn’t like the tension wasn’t going to be there.  As long as they were in the same room, it was there, crushing them.  If anything, it would probably be even worse this time, what with Wufei and Zechs being there as well.  Why would he want to subject himself to that?  Trowa turned back towards the phone and stopped. 

There was a pen sitting next to the note, one of the ones from the kitchen drawer.  Trowa looked at it and then at the phone.  He made up his mind in less than a second.  Snatching up the pen, he scrawled down a quicker and flatter message just beneath Heero’s.  Trowa dropped it and hurried back to his room.  He pulled a sweater on over his long-sleeved t-shirt and grabbed his wallet off the dresser.  Trowa made sure the windows and doors were all properly secured before putting on the boots he kept by the door.  They supported his ankle better than his usual shoes.  He swung on his coat, grabbed his helmet from the table and his keys from the bowl, and headed outside.  

Icy rain pounded down on his head.  _So much for snow._                               

He wasn’t going to lie to himself as sped down the highway.  The lie had been a bad one.  But unless Heero actually dared to call her, and Catherine was angry enough not to back him up, no one would ever know that Catherine hadn’t “begged” him to come see her.  They might not even care.  They might actually think it was a good thing that Catherine had called him away.  Quatre probably would.    Of course, that didn’t mean they weren’t going to be upset or offended.   _Too fucking bad._               

The rain fell cold and savage.  Trowa wondered, as the cold seeped into his sore skin and stiff muscles, if this had been one of his worst ideas.  His hands slid clumsily along the throttle.  His boots barely held to the bike, and the bike itself lost more and more traction and slipped more and more often with every mile.  Trowa ducked low over as the rain drummed against him.  Ice seeped into the gaps of his clothes and clung to his skin.  Trowa grit his teeth against the cold.

It felt oddly personal.  The storm was testing him.  Taunting him, trying to unseat him when he was already unsettled.  Wind whipped up from beneath him and slammed into his side.  Trowa tightened his grip and adjusted his balance, just in time to avoid a nasty spill.  The wind swirled away with a shriek.                

A smarter person would have taken the not-so-subtle hint and pulled over until the storm stopped.  A smarter person would have realized that tempting such a fickle mistress as fate in the middle of an ice storm bordered on suicidal.  Right now, Trowa was not a smart person.   Revving the engine, he pushed his speed up another 10 miles-per-hour.  The storm could throw the biggest tantrum it wanted.  If it thought it could frighten him, it was mistaken.  Trowa had faced worse things than ice storms.  Much worse 

By the time he reached the muddy grounds, though, Trowa was starting to regret his cavalier attitude.  The storm had settled some but the damage had already been done.  He was soaked and trembling when he clambered off his bike.  His ankle turned inwards despite the stiff material around it.  Trowa gripped the handles to keep from slipping into the mud.  He nearly slipped two more times on the way to the trailer.  But the ground beneath the awning had a few dry patches at least.  He left his bike on one of the bigger ones and hurried to the door. 

He knocked and waited.  After two minutes, he knocked again.  After five, no one came to the door.               

Rain dribbled down the back of his neck.  Trowa shivered and knocked again.  Catherine wasn’t _that_ heavy a sleeper.  _She isn’t home?_   It was a Saturday afternoon.  Trowa bounced from one foot to the other and tried to think about what she would do on a rainy Saturday.  Practice or shopping.  He took a quick look around the wet, lightless grounds.                  

He let out a soft growl of frustration.  It could be _hours_ before she got home.  Trowa knew: she used to drag him along whenever she went prowling the clothes store, unless he found a good excuse to avoid it.  Trowa wasn’t sure he could last out here for hours, and he didn’t want to go out in the rain again.  He glanced at the door.  Catherine didn’t have a spare key that she left lying around outside the trailer.  Honestly, she really didn’t need to since the ringmaster had the masters (and she had nothing of serious value).  Even if she had a spare, it would have been foolish to hide it around the trailer.  With how often they moved, she would lose it more often than not.  Breaking in, however, wouldn’t be hard.  The lock was basic and even if he didn’t have his picks, he could jimmy it open with the right kind of stick. 

Catherine wouldn’t mind.  Not really.  She’d probably be happier finding him sitting at her table, dry, than sitting outside under the awning, damp.              

Trowa squelched back to his bike, yanking his helmet off and shoving it onto the seat.  He squatted down next to his bike to wait.  The rain pounded against the awning over his head, dripping over the edges.  The wind kicked up and blew stray drops at him.  Trowa huddled in on himself, ducking his head against his arms.  It kept most of the water off his skin, but without it, he really felt the lingering chill. _I’m going to catch pneumonia if Catherine takes her dear, sweet time._                

Of course, Trowa could spare himself that misery with one simple act of breaking and entering.  It was Catherine’s house; it used to be his.  She honestly wouldn’t care.  She might complain a little about water on the floor and how she wished he would call in advance, but that would be the end of it.  Seeing him was always a pleasure, she said.  Seeing him in her previously locked trailer might dampen her usual happiness but not by much.  But seeing him squatting in the rain?   He couldn’t even imagine the screaming session she would give him for that, but he wanted to avoid it all the same.  And he could, if he just let himself quietly into his sister’s trailer.  He could it in five minutes if he found the right tool.               

He wasn’t going to.  Breaking into the computer system and altering his medical records had taken him “five minutes” too, and look where that had gotten him.  _I’m be better off freezing._                

After another fifteen minutes—at least he thought it was fifteen.  The cold was making his brain fuzzy—Trowa was not quite as willing to sit patiently.  His muscles had seized up a few minutes ago and rocking carefully on his heels was not doing much to get his circulation going.  He needed to get up but found his body too cold and heavy for the endeavor.  Trowa moved his hands up and down his sides instead.  He didn’t exactly realize that, with wet gloves and coat, the chances of generating any friction heat were less than none.  His chest ached beneath his fingers, which roused him enough to get him to move his legs a bit more.  They ached when he flexed.  Trowa grit his teeth.  Sitting in the rain was stupid, and he couldn’t quite remember why he was doing it.  Which is even stupider and slightly disconcerting.  He knew there was a good reason, though. 

“Trowa Barton!  Are you _insane_?”  There was the reason.  If he hadn’t been so cold, Trowa wouldn’t have been quite as surprised to hear Catherine shriek at him.  But he was cold.  Bone-deep cold.  Catherine’s voice knocked him off balance.  He slipped sideway into the muddy grass.  Trowa grimaced as a new, sticky wetness seeped through his clothes.  Now he was stiff, sore, cold, and filthy.  _Great_.  He flicked mud off his hands and glared up at her through his wet, dripping hair. 

Trowa swallowed.  He had seen Catherine angry before, rather often actually.  He had seen her _this_ angry only once before.  It had ended with her punching him in the face.  Catherine stared at him, plastic bags in one and umbrella in the other, trembling with rage.  Her mouth was pulled into a strange grimace, as if she wanted to smile but was fighting too hard not to kill him to do so

“What is the matter with you,” she snarled.  “Do you have some bizarre death wish that I’m not aware of?”                            

He should have waited inside.  He definitely should have waited inside.  If he was careful, though, he might be able to at least stave off the worst of the explosion.

“Catherine—” he started.  And that was all it took to set her off.

“It’s not even ten degrees, and you’re sitting outside, in the _rain_ , in _wet_ grass, in the middle of _December_!  You’re soaked!  You’re trembling!  You’re going to catch pneumonia and you know what?  I am not going to help you if you do.  Because you are the stupidest person on the planet and you deserve it!  Get inside right now!”               

“The door’s locked,” he muttered. 

Catherine glared at him.  “As if that’s ever stopped you before,” she snarled.  Trowa flinched.  Grumbling, Catherine turned and stomped towards the door.  Trowa thought she was going to rip it off the hinges with how hard she yanked it open.  He was very glad she was not within throttling distance.  

“It’s open now,” she hissed.  “In.  Side.”

Trowa sighed.  _I should have just stayed in the kitchen and waited for her to pick up._

Trowa stood and the world tilted sharply to the side.  He barely heard Catherine gasp as he staggered backwards.  He bumped into his bike and tried to catch himself on the handlebar as his legs went out from under him.  His hands convulsed uselessly and he slid down into the mud.  Trowa threw his arm out, just to keep his head up.  There was no traction.  His hand slipped straight across the ground and he ended up on his side in the muck. 

“Trowa!  Are you alright,” Catherine asked, sliding down to her knees next to him.  The rage was gone.  Now there was only a stomach-twisting worry.  She brushed the hair from his eyes.  Trowa saw the concern all over her face.  He tried to speak, to tell him he was fine and get that look of his face.  His throat tightened.  Trowa closed his mouth, dropped his head, and tried to breathe.  When he couldn’t he coughed. 

“Okay, okay let’s get you inside.  Come on, up you go.  It’ll be alright.  I’ll get you cleaned up.  Come on, Trowa, it’s alright,” she babbled.  Catherine gripped his arm as tightly as she could and pulled.  A sharp ache shot across his chest.  Trowa hissed and followed the pull just to make it stop.  He slipped as his legs fought but Catherine was too stubborn to let him fall again.  She practically dragged him to the house, murmuring softly every time he held onto her when his legs threatened to give.  Catherine coaxed him up the two steps, a gentle hand on his back to keep him steady, and into the trailer. 

Trowa shivered in the dark but Catherine refused to close the door until after he was safely seated on one of the kitchen table’s chairs.  She watched him for a moment, making sure he wouldn’t fall before she went around turning on lights and the heater, and putting the plastic bags on the counter.  Trowa watched her empty them as quickly as she could, water dripping down the back of his neck.  He tightened his arms over his waist and curled over his knees, trying to conserve heat.  The floor pitched forward.  Trowa closed his eyes and held onto the chair to keep from toppling out of it. 

“It’ll take a minute to warm up.  I haven’t been home since this morning.  Oh, I wish you would have called.  I would’ve left the door unlocked,” she sighed.  Trowa heard her run water.  And then she was pulling out another chair and gently coaxing him up.  “Sit up a bit.”

Trowa sat up slowly, trying to keep the dizziness to a minimum.  He flinched from the warm, wet towel Catherine tried to press against his cheek.  Catherine pulled gently at his wrist to keep him still.  Shushing him, she ran the cloth carefully over his face.  After a couple of swipes, the heat was pleasant as opposed to painful and he relaxed some.  He closed his eyes and sighed.  Catherine’s fingers slid down to his hand and held them gently.  Trowa squeezed back. 

She was treating him like a child again, but it felt good. 

It felt too good.  He didn’t even notice that her hand had stopped moving, he was too drawn to the comfortable warmth spreading across his face.  But then there was a small, dull pain from a moment of pressure.  Catherine had pressed the towel a little too hard against his cheek.  She did it once, then twice, and finally pulled the towel away.  Trowa’s eyes snapped open when he traced the bruises on his cheek.  _Shit._

 “These, these are bruises.  What happened Trowa?  They’re awful looking.”               

Trowa brushed her hand away.  “It’s nothing,” he said a little harder than he meant.  “They’re nothing.  They’ve been there for almost a week—”               

“A week?” Trowa swore under his breath.  “You’ve had these for a week and didn’t tell me?  Trowa, have you even looked in a mirror?  They’re horrible.  I don’t even want to imagine what they looked like before—”              

“Then don’t.”  Catherine was starting to ramble and thankfully hadn’t heard him. 

“What did you do, bash your face against a door handle?”               

Trowa rolled his eyes.  “Yes, Catherine, I decided to smash my own face against a door handle, just for laughs, and not tell you about it.”              

“Well then what happened?  Did you get into a fight,” Catherine demanded.  Trowa sank back into the chair and looked at the far wall. “You did, didn’t you?”  There was a long crack.  Trowa, biting savagely at his cheek, stared at it and tried to remember how it had gotten there.  “What is the matter with you?”  He tasted blood.  “Trowa, look at me.  Why didn’t you call?”               

“Because it’s none of your business,” he snapped.  Catherine’s chair screeched as she pushed back from him. “What happened is none of your damn business, alright?  What did to me is none of your business, so just—”              

Trowa gasped as his mouth was stopped with the warm wool of Catherine’s sweater.  He squirmed in her grip. Catherine just held tighter, locking her arms around his chest, digging in with her fingers.  The pressure hurt his ribs.  He pushed against her shoulders.  Catherine shook her head, her hair brushing the side of his face.  She snaked one of her hands into his hair and pressed him hard against her shoulder.  And then her fingers started to move.  They ran through his hair, over his scalp, up and down the back of his neck.  Trowa pushed for as long as he could, but soon enough he crumbled beneath the gentle comfort.  He gripped her arms as he buried his face in her shoulder.  

Trowa held, and let himself be held, until his body started to shiver.  Catherine noticed and finally, reluctantly, let him go. She sat back and brushed the backs of her fingers against the bruises lightly.               

“You’re still wet and filthy,” she said after a moment.  She patted his cheek lightly.  “Get out of those clothes so I can wash them.  And go take a shower, it’ll warm you up.  I got the good water heater this time.”                

Trowa looked at her for a moment before sighing.  “Yes Catherine.”  He rose slowly and headed to the bathroom, trying to track as little mud as possible.                 

“You really aren’t yourself,” she said softly.  Trowa glanced back at her.  She smiled sadly.  “You’re not even fighting me on this.”                

“No,” he said after a moment.  “I guess I’m not.” 

Catherine nodded a bit then waved him gently into the bathroom.  Trowa lingered at the door.  He watched her rise and start a pot of water and then poke around in the cabinets.  He thunked his head against the door before slipping inside and shutting it behind him.

Trowa peeled off his sodden boots and socks and left them in the back of the tub to drain.  He tilted the showerhead so that when he started the water—because even the good water heater took at least a couple minutes to actually heat—the water just pooled around the bottoms of the his shoes.  His socks were already wet.  More water couldn’t hurt them.  Brown already started circling down the drain.  Trowa almost sat on the toilet as he struggled with his wet shirt before remembering he was filthy.  He stayed standing as he fought with his clothes. 

The wet, muddy garments clung to him like a second skin.  Trowa was worried he was going to rip something, until his hand lost its grip on his pant leg and smacked his elbow into the sink.  Then he didn’t particularly care if he put a whole in the damn things.  He yanked them off and tossed them by the door.  He’d clean up the stain for Catherine later.  

There was a clean towel in the cupboard under the sink, right next to the tissue box.  He banged his head on the underside of the sink as he brought it out.  Flinging it on the toilet seat, Trowa swore.  He’d forgotten how much he hated this tiny bathroom.  How did Catherine stand it?                               

The fact that he didn’t yank off the shower curtain was a small miracle.  But the second he stepped under the spray, the irritation and anger left him.  Trowa tilted his head back into the heat.   Water poured over him, pulsed against his shoulders, driving into sore muscles.  And the heat spread fast and even from his head to his feet.   It was bliss.  The longer he stood, the more relaxed he became, even as the water pounded into still-sensitive bruises of his face and neck.  Trowa sighed.

Slowly, he lifted his head and watched the mud run in messy rivulets down his arms.  He ran a hand through his hair.  Black water dribbled down his face and hands.  Trowa followed the brown and black trails as the curled over his wrists and elbows and followed the curves of his body.  All the curves.  Even the ones he wished weren’t there.  Muddy water ran around his breasts and down the soft dip of his waist before circling down his thigh and spiraling down the drain.  

Trowa swallowed and sank down into the tab. 

He was a little too tall to stretch all the way, especially with his boots at the end of the tub.  Trowa folded one leg partly beneath, careful not to bend to far, and raised the other.  He rested his head on his knee, closing his eyes so that he didn’t have to watch the water.  He just wanted to feel the water, warm and pleasant, as it washed away the aches and pains.  The physical ones anyway.  But he had already seen.  Now he could not unsee, and the water turned brutal. 

It would be rude, he told himself, to waste all of his sister’s hot water.  That was why he hurried the way he did, washing away the mud as fast, and as painfully, as possible.  And he did feel a little better clean.  He felt warmer, anyway.  Trowa stood carefully and let the water run for another minute after he was done, until the water circling the drain was clear.  They wouldn’t have to clean the tub then. 

Trowa stepped carefully out of the tub, shivering in the cooler air.  The towel barely did anything to warm him.  It was too small to even cover most of him.  Trowa dragged it over himself quickly, looking away on occasion.  It was only when it was dry and he realized that it could cover his hips or his chest but not both, that he wondered what he was going to do about clothes.  He wasn’t getting back into the muddy ones (Catherine would probably kill him if he tried).  But there wasn’t another towel in the cabinet.

He was just about to open the door and call for her when he noticed.  The pile of clothes he had left by the door had changed.  Instead of muddy denim and cotton, there was clean flannel.  The pajamas sat on top of a towel of their own to keep them out of the puddle Trowa’s had left.

Catherine must have brought them when he was in the shower.  Probably when he was sitting in the muddy water, concentrating on not looking.  He shook his head.  _She does too much for me._                               

Catherine looked over from the counter when he came out.  She smiled warmly. 

“I thought those would still fit you pretty good.  They’re a bit big,” she said.  Then she frowned.  “Actually they’re too big.  You lost weight again, didn’t you?  Well I’ll fix that.  Dinner’s almost ready.”

Trowa didn’t need her to tell him.  He could smell it.  The trailer was full of the rich, spicy tang of soup and the sweet, cloying one of fruit.  Trowa’s mouth watered.  He almost forgot how uncomfortable these pajamas made him, what with the lack of deception and the way the fabric rubbed against sensitive parts.               

“Don’t just stand there.  Sit down, silly,” she said, shaking her head.  Trowa padded over to his usual chair and sat down.  Catherine brought over a small basket of bread slices.  She put them on the table before leaning over and ruffling his hair.  She grinned at his growl.  “You used the all your hair goop last time, so you’re just going to have to deal.  But I happen to like it like this.  It’s very handsome.”               

Thankfully, Catherine was already heading back to the counter and hadn’t noticed how stiff he’d gone.  Never again.  His hair was never going to be down again.  He’d keep a tub of hair glue in his pocket for the rest of his life.              

“I’ve got left over vegetable soup for you, since I know you have my chicken soup because you hate chicken,” Catherine said.  “And I sautéed some of the other vegetables I had and there’s some fruit if you want it.  Just bought it today.  Nearly had to beat an old bat with my purse to get at it.  And of course there’s bread because what’s soup without bread.”               

“That’s fine Catherine,” he said.  He kept his arms folded and pressed over his stomach, as if pressure would make it stop growling.  When she set the soup in front of him, steam curling temptingly from the hot surface, his stomach lurched with an angry noise of want.  Fingers dug into his palm.  He had better control than this.     

“Well go on.  I didn’t make it to be stared at.”  Trowa looked at her before unwinding his arms and taking the spoon carefully.  Catherine folded her arms.  “I’m pretty sure there’s some tea left.  I’ll make you a mug, and if you’re not all warm and toasty then, then nothing’s going to help.”  

Catherine turned back to find the tea, so she didn’t see Trowa’s will break.  He pounced on the food with all the enthusiasm that his manners allowed.  The soup was heaven in his mouth and bliss going down his throat.  On the third spoonful, he told his tsking brain to shut up and let him enjoy the meal.  _I’ll starve myself later._  

Catherine let out a startled, gasping laugh as she put a cup of tea down near him.  “I hope you’re actually tasting it, Trowa.  And chewing it, because I don’t think I’m strong enough to do the Heimlich on you.”  Catherine sat down across from him with her own mug.  She took a piece of bread and ripped at it carefully, popping a piece into her mouth every so often.  After a few minutes of watching him satisfying his hunger, Catherine shook her head.  “You’d think you hadn’t eaten in days with the face you’re going at.  I mean I know you like my food and all, but why did you wince, Trowa Barton?”

Trowa hadn’t even felt himself wince.  But he must have.  Catherine was too observant, and not clever enough to wheedle things out of him without a cue.  Trowa swallowed a spoonful of soup before setting the spoon down in the near-empty bowl.  

“I’m sorry?”

“You winced.”

"Did I,” he asked, meeting her narrow gaze with his own.  Trowa held it for as long as he could before the guilt made him look away. 

“Yes, you did.  You have eaten for the last few days, haven’t you Trowa?"

“Catherine—” 

“Haven’t you?”  Catherine’s voice was taking on the hard edge that an early tell of an on-coming lecture.  Lying would only make it worse at this point.  Linking his fingers in front of him, Trowa pressed his forehead to his hands and shook his head.  He heard an angry intake of breath.  “When was the last time you ate?”                                               

“A week,” he said, steeling himself for the explosion.  “Give or take.”  Catherine did not disappoint him.             

“What is the matter with you,” she demanded, slamming her mug onto the table.  Trowa closed his eyes.  Didn’t he get this speech earlier?  “No wonder you inhaled it.  No wonder you collapsed outside!  I’m amazed you even made it here in one piece!” 

Trowa sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.  He deserved this, mostly because it had been a dumb thing to do and partly because he was too stupid not to keep himself in check around her.  He flinched as she pushed her chair back, the legs screeching on the floor.  He half expected her to hit him again.  He did not expect her to stomp away.  Trowa lifted his face from his hand. 

Catherine was half way to the wall phone.  That couldn’t be good.

“This is ridiculous.  Those idiots should be making you’re at least taking care yourself, damn it.  They of all people should know what you’re like.”               

No.  Definitely not good.  

Trowa scrambled out of the chair and was across the room before Cathrine even got the phone to her ear.  He pushed down hard on the phone cradle, blocking the numbers.  Catherine looked ready to beat him around the head with the phone.              

“Trowa!”             

 “No,” he said.  Trowa yanked the phone from her and put it back.  Catherine bristled.               

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”              

“No.  Don’t even think about it,” he spat.  Catherine glared at him as he walked back to the table, but she didn’t go for the phone again.  _Yet._                

“Why not?”              

“Because,” he snapped.  He snatched up his tea and drained it.  His hands were shaking so hard, he nearly spilled   “They’re not home, anyway.”             

“They’re not?”             

“No.  They’re visiting Wufei and Zechs.  I highly doubt they’re home yet.”  Catherine frowned slightly, arms cross across her chest.             

“Zechs and Wufei.  They work with you, right?  They’re your friends.”  _That’s one way to look at it._ Trowa nodded, not trusting himself to talk.  “Why didn’t you with them then?  Weren’t you invited?”             

Trowa’s jaw was starting to hurt again.  He needed to stop grinding his teeth.  “Yes,” he muttered through his teeth.  “I was.”              

“Then why didn’t you?”            

“Because.”            

“Because is not a reason,” she pressed.                

Where had he heard that before? “Because I didn’t feel like it.”              

“Why not?”             

“I didn’t feel like doing that to myself.”               

If Trowa expected her to understand, he was sorely disappointed.  Catherine frowned more.  “Do what to yourself,” she asked.  Trowa looked away.  They were silent for a moment.  Then Catherine took a step.  She waited until she was in front of him, cupping his face in her hands to talk. 

“Did something happen, Trowa,” she asked, eyes soft with concern.  “Did you guys have a fight?”  _I wish it had been a fight._ Trowa sighed, shaking his head.  “Then what is it?” 

Trowa didn’t say anything.  He didn’t want to, because he knew it would break the soothing warmth of her hands on his face, and right now that warmth was all he wanted.  If he opened his mouth, it would disappear.  But if he kept his silence, Catherine’s suspicions would grow.  Left alone, that suspicion would lead her to do stupid, unnecessary, unwanted things.  Like call them to get the story.  He couldn’t trust them not to answer her.                              

It would be better this way, wouldn’t it?  Even just a little?  It would relieve some of the awful pressure, wouldn’t it?  He certainly hoped so.             

“They know,” Trowa finally said, voice barely rising about a whisper.  Catherine frowned and leaned closer.  Trowa licked his lips, not wanting to say it again but knowing he had no choice.  He couldn’t stop his voice from shaking.  “They know.  All of them.  They know.”              

 “Know what?”  Trowa closed his eyes, pulling away from her hands.  He pressed the heels of his palms hard against his temples.  “Trowa, what do they—”            

“They _know_ , Catherine,” he said, eyes shut tight.  “What, What I am.  They know.” 

Trowa expected several reactions: shock, concern, maybe even fear.  He didn’t expect glee.  His mouth dropped open when Catherine took both his hands and squeezed them, a wide, relieved smile spreading across her face.              

“You told them.  You finally told them.  Oh Trowa, thank god, you—”

Trowa ripped himself away.  “Are you insane?  No I didn’t tell them!  If I had my way, no one would ever know!”                               

“Well if you didn’t tell them,” Catherine snarled back.  “Then who did?” 

Trowa opened his mouth.  Nothing came out.  Unable to speak, he looked away.  Catherine followed him.  Her eyes ran rapidly over his face and neck, lingering on the bruises.  She frowned. 

“Did they do this to you?”  Trowa wished he hadn’t said anything.  He could eyes tightly, and immediately wished he hadn’t.    Kader’s face flashed before him, grinning.  He could almost feel him again.  The hands around his throat, on his chest, between his legs.  Trowa forced his eyes open.  He could barely breathe.  “Oh my god, they did.”

Trowa shook his head.  He needed a distraction.  Something.  Anything.  He needed to breathe.  Trowa stumbled away and towards the sink.  The mug broke against the edge as he dropped it.

Catherine didn’t notice.  “Those bastards, I’ll kill them,” she swore.  “After everything you went through together!  Those sons of bitches.  If they think—”             

“They didn’t,” he said.  Trowa clutched the edge of the sink as his stomach lurched.  “They haven’t touched me.”  His fingers trembled around the sink.  Trowa’s head droped.  “They _saved_ me.”             

Catherine hovered behind him.  “Saved you?  From what?”

Trowa opened his mouth to speak.  A soft, high gasp fluttered up from his throat.  Catherine’s fingers were suddenly on his cheek.  Trowa stared at the sink and broken ceramic as they moved in slow, curling lines down his face.  His fingers trailed after them.  They came away from his skin wet.  He stared at the liquid coating his fingers.  He tasted its salt on his tongue as the curling lines of it fell faster.  His lip trembled.  Trowa clenched his fist and brought it down hard on the sink.  Catherine’s hand slid down his face to his shoulder.

There was a heavy, painful ringing in his ears.  But behind it he heard the voices laughing and purring in his ear.  And behind that he heard soft, choking cries that for some reason matched Trowa’s rapid swallowing. 

Trowa crumpled to his knees.  He toppled forward until his head hit the cabinet.  His fingers tightened in his hair.  Catherine sank down beside him.  Her arms were about his waist, her chin on his shoulder, attempting to coax.  To comfort.

He shut his eyes and screamed.   

               

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trowa goes to a bar.

 

“Name your poison, pal," said the bartender.  Only a couple of years older than Trowa, he was an attractive man: black hair, dark skin, a lean face and fine, high cheek bones.   He was pierced, but the jewelry was relatively tasteful.  A couple of rings skirting one ear, a smaller one in his eyebrow, a simple stud in his nose.  Trowa was neither intrigued nor repulsed by them. They were slightly interesting  The bartender seemed interested in _him_ in return.  He ran his eyes carefully over Trowa several times as he waited, the soft smile widening into an appreciative grin with each sweep. Trowa might have found it unnerving, and maybe a little flattering, if he really noticed.  But he didn’t.  Trowa didn’t really notice much of anything.  There was too much going on, in the bar and in his head.     

The bar reeked.  The air was thick with smoke and alcohol and human heat.  Every time he breathed, he wanted to cough, there was so much nicotine and sweat coating his lungs.  And whenever a woman walked past him or slid up to the bar even three stools away, he was further choked with a cloud of sharp, cloying sweetness.  Trowa struggled against the urge to shove his helmet back onto his head.  How could people _enjoy_ these?  

Trowa looked back at the bartender when he felt something snap against his elbow.  His smile was a little strained now, and he tossed the dishrag on the bar with obvious irritation. 

“In case he hadn’t noticed,” he said, leaning forward and looking up and down the bar.  “We’re a little busy at the moment.”

There were five people, including this one, manning the bar.  Taking into account the number of tables he had seen, the number of heads he had counted when he first stepped in, and the number of people on either side of him right now, that meant that each bartender was responsible for the drinks of about thirty customers.  Yeah, they were busy.  Trowa slipped into the empty stool, putting his helmet on the floor and planting his foot on top of it.

The bartender took it as a good sign.  His smile relaxed.  “So what’ll it be?”               

Trowa stared at the bottles lining the back of the bar, and then the short, handwritten menu to the side. Apart from prices, he didn’t understand a word of it.  _You're in over your head_ _._ Trowa wasn’t much of a drinker.  He had never seen a particular reason to be.  Alcohol was an imperative, and Trowa was far too paranoid to willing subject his body to mind alerting or body affecting substances.  For pleasure anyway.  And the few times that he did drink (social gatherings mainly), what he had was never up to him.  Duo might put one of a few popular but uninspiring beers in his hands, and Quatre might give him a rich wine or a smooth liquor.   But he couldn’t remember any of the names.   

Trowa flinched as he thought of the two, turning the spasm into a not-so-convincing shrug.  He leaned forward and said one of the dumbest things he had ever said in his life.  _I lost my mind back there._

“Surprise me.”

The bartender blinked once before smiling. “You sure about that,” he asked.  Trowa glared at him until he shrugged.  “Famous last words, but if that’s what you want, I’ll fix you up something nice.”                              

Trowa sighed after the bartender turned.  He felt safe enough to do it, considering how loud the place was.  People shouted on either side of him, either at bartenders or to each other, but Trowa could barely hear them over the blaring music.  The bar underneath his elbow shivered with the heavy bass.  Trowa looked around, hoping that the distraction would keep the headache from building.  There was an odd assortment of patrons here.  The tables nearest him had two sets of business men, one triad of giggling women, and half-a-dozen men who talked in low whispers while looking over at the table of women.  Trowa watched them, trying to find the exuberance of one business group and the misery of the other even remotely interesting.  The likelihood of them being rival companies, and choosing to celebrate victory and drown defeat in the same bar, was so low it was laughable. 

The failed pick-up was at least mildly interesting.  The least attractive of the half dozen men had squared his shoulders and marched straight to the table.  He was there for less than a minute before he scampered back to his table, shirt wet and chased by the women’s scorching laughter.  _I wonder what he said._   

“Here we do,” the bartender said, plunking a drink down next to his elbow.  Trowa glanced down at it.  He didn’t even know they made glasses that tall.  “Think you might like it." 

Trowa stared down at the tall, full glass.  He couldn’t tell what color it was in the low lighting, other than dark.  The thin layer of foam floating at the top was an only slightly lighter shade of gray.  It was dissolving rapidly.  Trowa took it and brought it to his nose, giving it a cursory, unnecessary sniff.  If there was something off about it, he wouldn’t be able to tell.  He frowned at it, squared his shoulders, and swigged a good fourth. 

He nearly choked it back up.             

It _burned_ down his throat, and then into his lungs as he tried to keep from coughing.  Trowa thought he had swallowed acid, it burned so bad.  To make matters worse, it left such a vile aftertaste that Trowa nearly shuddered.  Swallowing down another cough, Trowa glared at his drink and then at the bartender who had already moved away to deal with another customer.  It was unlikely that he did something to the drink, if only because poisoning customers was a bad business practice, but Trowa couldn’t stop himself from assuming.  He must’ve slipped him something or added something or just mixed it wrong, because there was no way in hell that something could taste that bad.  Not even alcohol—

Trowa frowned at the drink more.  It had been a few months ago, when Heero was away for one mission and Duo was prepping for another.  They both had come home ridiculously late, but instead of going to bed, Duo had managed to convince him to drop on the couch and “share” a beer with him.  Duo had thrust a beer in his hand and wouldn’t let him go to bed until he finished it.  And Trowa had just been too tired to force him to leave him alone.  Trowa had taken a gulp and nearly spit it out.  It had burned, _like an acid_ , and left such a taste in his mouth that he had apparently made the funniest face Duo had ever seen.  He had nearly squirted beer out his nose.  At the time, Trowa had hoped he would. 

And before that, Quatre had once dragged him to a holiday party.  He needed a “date” he said and couldn’t stand any of the staffers that were free.  It had been a quiet, awkward affair, one that Trowa had endured leaning against the back wall of the hall.  Quatre would slip back to stand within him whenever he could, and one time he had brought a tall, slender glass of a rich, ruby-colored wine.  The initial, and the after, taste had been much better than the beer, but the burn had still been there.  Quatre had smiled and told him he didn’t have to finish it.  Trowa did, but he didn’t have another after that.             

 _Alcohol is alcohol,_ he realized as he stared down at the surface.  _It always burns.  How long it burns, that’s the difference._ This one might taste better after a second sip, at the very most a third. 

There wasn’t the slightest difference until the fifth. 

“Woah, what kind of bad day have you been having,” the bartender asked.  Trowa stared at him over the rim.  “Only people I’ve ever seen inhale a drink like that are the ones that have shit to forget.”  Trowa glared at him.  “Anything you want to talk about,” he asked, leaning forward.  Trowa’s eyes narrowed further.  The bartender backed away with a shrug.  “I get it, I get it.  Back off, right?”  Trowa snorted and took another sip.  “Back off.  Alright.  Well, I’ll just see you in another half hour then.  The drugs should’ve kicked in by then, and we can go in the back and have some fun.”               

Trowa nearly spat whatever it was out his nose.  He covered his nose and mouth with his hand as he coughed, glaring at the bartender.  A glass to the head wouldn’t kill him, but it would certainly hurt.              

“Calm down, man, I was kidding.  There’s nothing funky in your drink, I promise.  I happen to like my job a little too much to drug people, even sexy people.  Besides,” he said with a wide, white smile.  “I can get any guy I want without help.”              

Trowa stared at him without blinking until the bartender sighed and hung his head.  “Call if you need me,” he said before stepping back.

He drank silently, savoring the last quarter the glass—or maybe he was just trying to head off the low buzzing that was starting in the back of his head.  He watched the swarm of people around the bar shift and change.  Business men here, ladies there, kids that couldn’t be much older than himself.  And several that were certainly younger.  If underage drinking was a problem here, no one mentioned it.  The bartenders didn’t even ask for IDs.  

“To be honest,” his bartender sighed, and Trowa would never admit that he had managed to sneak up on him.  He would never admit that he jumped.  “I really don’t approve.  I’ve seen all those red-concrete movies, too.  But business is business, and this job’s cushy enough that I want to keep it.” 

Trowa looked at him before letting his eyes slid back to the group of men.  The group of _teenagers_.  They took short bottles from the bar and hunted around for an empty table.  They looked ridiculously out of place.  Too skinny, too undressed.  Too excited, too twitchy.  _Too innocent._ They didn’t belong here, in the smoke and the press of human flesh.  Neither did Trowa, but he at least felt old enough, and maybe looked it.  Nobody carded him, either. 

“Top you off,” his bartender asked.  Trowa looked down at his empty glass. 

“Sure,” he murmured, sliding it towards the bartender.  The other grinned. 

“A step in the right direction,” he said. He made the drink in front of Trowa this time.  “Now just don’t mention your age or else I’ll have to kick you out before I get a name out of you.” 

Trowa frowned and was sorely tempted to do just that.  He snatched up the first drink and took a long pull.  

“Flag me down when you need a refill,” the bartender chuckled.                

Fresh drink in hand, Trowa rested his chin in his hand. A spike of pain shot through his cheek and neck. Sneering, Trowa knocked back a fourth of the drink and was bitterly thankful for the bad lightly.  The last thing he needed was some snot-nosed kid, or an irritating bartender, asking after his bruises.  Trowa forced his next to be smaller, and the next one smaller still, until he was slowly nursing the alcohol.  The burn was almost gone, leaving only a delicious, pleasant tang.  He closed his eyes.   _I should ask him what this is, or at least what he put in it.  Maybe he’ll write it down. I know Quatre would love it._              

Trowa’s throat tightened, like a hand was squeezing. Another hand started pushing hard against his chest, cutting of his breath even more. Trowa lowered his head.  He pressed his free hand over his eyes, squeezing at the temples that had stopped throbbing barely even an hour ago. 

Had it only been an hour?  An hour of peace, an hour where he had been driving too fast to think about anything other than not killing himself on the highway?  

Cradling his head, he dug his fingers into his head.  _Shit._

 

 

*-----*-----* 

This would be the third time that Trowa had woken up since Catherine had tucked him into the couch.  How she actually expected him to sleep after that display was beyond him.  But Catherine had always been the optimistic sort.               

Trowa ran shaky fingers through his hair, pushing it back off his face. He felt cold sweat clinging to his forehead. Shivering, Trowa pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and tried to breathe deeply. It was difficult, what with lurid images flickering across his mind and someone whispering so close in his ear.  Trowa shook his head.

It wasn't real, _it can’t be real._ It was over; it was _past_. These were just figments of his imagination. They weren't there. They couldn't hurt him. They couldn't touch him.              

As if he believed any of that.              

Trowa managed to fall into a doze, and then shot up off the couch after only a few minutes of it.  The phantom touches skittered away under the pain of his quick movements. Groaning softly, Trowa settled himself more comfortably against the couch.  He glanced at the bedroom door.  The room beyond was quiet, the slit under the door dark.  He hadn't woken her up. _Again._               

Trowa hugged his knees to his chest. The faint scent of the now ice-cold jasmine tea drifted to his nose. He hadn't managed to drink all of it the first time he woken up before nodding back off, and he had forgotten it was there the second time. Shivering, he wrapped the blanket tight around his shoulders and glanced at the mug.  He frowned.  If he wasn't going to drink it, he should dump it out.  Trowa curled tightly into the corner of the couch.  It was too cold, and he would definitely wake her if he went stumbling around in the dark.   _And I've kept her up enough already._

Catherine had stayed up very late with him before she finally decided that the best thing for him was to try and sleep.  It had taken him nearly an hour to calm down; his throat was still hurting from all the screaming and crying.  As did his knees.  Catherine had fought him tooth and nail for ten minutes to get him to the couch, which was an infinitely more comfortable place to be hysterical.  He was quite sure he had kicked her at least once.  When he finally got to the couch, Catherine had to hold him there, which only made the hysterics worse until she crushed him to her chest.  And then Trowa simply hadn’t let her go.

When the hysteria finally dropped to merely very upset, it was almost another hour until he actually answered her. 

Trowa wanted to kick himself just thinking about the absolutely pathetic reaction.  He knew he had more control than that.  _You’ve dealt with more than this, worse than this, without so much as a sniffle.  That was ridiculous._ He didn’t understand how it happened.  It was like something in him broke.  Something he hadn’t even been aware of existing, and all of his fought-for calm dissolved into total emotional chaos.  He had drowned in sadness and fear and anger, and when he came up for air at last, his body had shut down like he had been spiraling underneath water instead of his ridiculous feelings.                                               

Of course, the mind-numbing exhaustion wasn't as bad now as it had been.  He had barely been able to keep his head up before, letting it mostly lay against Catherine’s stomach or chest.  He had endured Catherine’s fussing over him, wrapping him in blankets and tipping a mug of tea towards his mouth on occasion, without so much as a glower because he just couldn’t find the energy for it.

He hadn’t found the energy to ignore or deflect her questions either. 

Trowa hadn’t answered her verbally—his mouth just wouldn’t cooperate—but he had nodded or shook his head against her stomach to the myriad of questions she thrust at him.  For once, Catherine didn’t scold him for such “inappropriate” answers.  For once, she understood that that was the best he could do. 

And when she finally realized that even that much was too much, Catherine simply held him, hugging him so tightly that his chest complained.  Not that he had minded.  He was too busy burying his face in her fleece-covered shoulder and biting back a second wave of hysteria.  

Trowa groaned and sank onto his side.  He curled into the blanket and tugged the edges of his feet and head.  The weave was warm and thick; he couldn’t see anything.  Still, he kept his face turned towards the bedroom’s general direction.  If the light flicked on, he should be able to see at least a little of it.  He could feign sleep as long as he caught her coming out of the room to check on him. 

The trailer stayed quiet, a soft brush of wind occasionally making the windows or ceiling creak.  After a few minutes, Trowa pushed the blanket off.  He rolled carefully onto his back, still watching the door.  The cushion creaked.  The door stayed closed.  Sighing, he stared up at the ceiling.  He brushed back his hair again before letting his arm drape of over the arm of the couch.  His knuckles brushed against the side table.  Trowa tilted his head back.  From this angle, he could just barely see the shadowed handle of the white mug.  He moved his fingers slowly, inching them towards it.  Trowa pulled the mug towards the edge of the table carefully. 

Picking up a mug half-full while upside-down was moderately stupid.  If it had been hot, it would have been really stupid.  Trowa sat up a bit.  He held the mug between his hands, swirling the cold tea, listening to the quiet slosh of it against the sides.  He gave it a tentative sip before squaring his shoulders and downing the rest.

A disgusted shudder wriggled down his spine.  Nope, he still hated cold tea. 

He left the mug on the floor for a moment to grope for his socks.  He had kicked them off at some point before falling asleep.  They were cold, but not as cold as the floor.  He’d deal with it.  Trowa stood carefully.  He felt unusually stiff and unusually sore, and his head spun with just the thought of being upright.  He dipped down carefully for the mug.  Trowa shuffled slowly towards the sink, not wanting to wake Catherine but trusting himself to move any faster at the moment.  With one hand out, he felt around the table and chairs and towards the counter.  He didn’t make a sound when his knee somehow connected to the cabinet first.    

Trowa watched the door for a whole minute before putting the mug in the sink.  _You’re ridiculous._   He turned the tap carefully, letting just a steady drip of water trickle into the mug.  He shut it off quickly, swished the dregs with the finger-full of water, and then lay the mug on its side.  _Absolutely ridiculous. She’s not going to wake up, not after all that.  She’s exhausted.  She wouldn’t hear you if started juggling plates._ Trowa certainly wouldn’t.  With how tired he was, he wasn’t sure if he would hear someone juggling chainsaws, if he could actually sleep, that is.  _Wash the damn mug, you idiot.  Stop trying to be sneaky.  Stop being timid.  Wash the damn mug._

Trowa left it on its side.  He sighed and let his head fall back.  “What’s the matter with you,” he muttered, eyes drifting closed.  “Get a grip.”             

 _“I do believe I prefer you like this_ _,”_ Kader purred into his ear, too close to be anything but real.Trowa gasped, his grip on the sink breaking.  He stumbled backwards, feet tangling together as he tried to run and stay still at the same time. Trowa tumbled to the floor.  Kader chuckled.  Trowa scrambled back. _“Should I laugh, should I gasp, should I fuck you mindless?”_ Heat and blood rushed from his face, and he whimpered.  Trowa, suddenly drenched in cold, heard a high, distant whining.  It took him a minute to realize it came from his throat. 

 _“What a beautiful freak you are.”_                

Trowa kicked himself back until sharp pain burst along the back of his head.  There was a loud crash and Trowa slipped onto his back.  Sprawled across the floor, he panted.  He looked around quickly, catching sight of the heavy shadow looming above.  Trowa shook his head and kicked, a second high whine squeaking out of his throat.  Trowa lashed out with fists.  His knuckles connected with the shadow.  It jolted up and fell back with a too-soft thud.  

Trowa lay back against the floor, panting, his head ringing.  He reached up towards the shadow slowly.  His fingers flinched from its smooth surface.  Swallowing, Trowa poked at it before wrapping his fingers around it.  It was hard, this shadow, and slender.  Cylindrical.  Trowa slid his hand along it, bumping into a barrier at one end and air at the next.  The shadow sharpened with recognition.                               

A leg. A _chair_ leg to be exact. Trowa stared at it for a minute more before letting his hand drop.  A chair.  It must have fallen over.  But when?  The back of his head throbbed.  He must've knocked the chair over.  Yes, that would explain a few things, like the crash.  He must have bumped into it he was trying to escape—

 _Escape what?_  Trowa pinched the bridge of his nose.  The night?  The _cold_? _A fucking shadow._  Trowa rose to his knees, stiff and angry.  He yanked the chair to its feet and shoved it under the table.  How stupid could he be?  How could Trowa have listened his over-active imagination?  How could he have given it the leverage, the opportunity, to devolve him into a quivering child with just a disembodied voice and the thought of a hand in the dark?   Trowa had been close to _begging_.           

“Pathetic,” he growled, beating his fist into the floor. “You're pathetic.  Get over it.  Now.”  His heart continued to pound in his chest.  It seemed to beat faster every second.  “Get over it, it’s over.  He attacked you, so what?  He hit you, big deal. He probably raped you and left you for dead.”  He could barely get the words out.

“So what,” he spat.  “You don’t even remember.  You blacked out, genius. So get over it.  There’s nothing there.  There’s nothing to freak out over.  You weren't even a virgin.  It's not like you had something to lose. He wasn't the first and you know what, he probably isn't the last. Nothing's changed.  You're still the same used, fucked up freak, with just one more little incident to give you bad dreams. Get the fuck over it." 

Even as he hissed at himself, Trowa felt the tears slid down his face. _Damn it, haven't you_ _cried enough today?_ Apparently not.  This wasn’t something cry over.  It wasn’t, but that didn't stop them. Breath hitching, he pressed his forehead into the floor.  Trowa dug his fingers into his sides as he tried to swallow the sobs.  They lurched out of his throat.

This wasn't fair.  He taught himself better, trained himself better.  Reactions like this never got him anywhere.  Not anywhere good, anyway.  And this, this was no different than then.  This was better, even.  One bastard instead of half a dozen.   _So why can't I control myself?_ _What’s the big deal?  What’s the difference?_                

Now, Trowa had some things to lose.               

Cursing, he dragged himself to his feet, catching himself on the table as he swayed.  He rubbed furiously at his eyes. The tears dribbled along his fingers.   _God damn it._   Lurching forward, Trowa stumbled to the door and his shoes.  Catherine had moved them there sometime between the hysterics and bed.  A decent sized puddled seeped out from beneath them.  He shoved his feet in and shivered.  Still damp, but dry enough.   His jacket was no better.  The damp fabric clung like a skin too small for him.  Still he shoved himself into it, zipping it tightly. 

Trowa glanced over his shoulder.  Catherine's light was still out, but not for much longer, he was sure. Already he thought he could hear her stirring, hear the duvet being shoved back.                

He inched backwards, watching the space under the bedroom door.  When he felt the handle, Trowa gripped it. Trowa opened the door just wide enough to slip out and then shut it noiselessly behind him.  After he made sure it wouldn’t lock behind him.  _If I wasn't completely frozen, Catherine would kick me when she found me._  

He turned on the spot and froze.  It looked like the snow had finally come. 

The grounds were still and white.  Ice and rain had hardened into beads of snow, drifting and curling down from the black, silent sky.  The howling wind had been replaced by a cool whisper.  It nudged up snow wherever it touched, letting it glide gracefully back down after it had passed.  Trowa leaned back against the door and watched the fat flakes spiral delicately to the ground, to the tents, to his hair.  He reached up and shifted some of it. Snow tickled down the back of his neck.  

Trowa leaned his head back.  Snow landed softly on his cheeks and forehead, his eyes and mouth, and that uncomfortable heat and the lingering film from misery finally started to melt.  

He took his time walking across the grounds, hands deep in his pockets.  A turn about the circus.  Maybe too.  That was all he needed.  A little peace and quiet, and with the snow falling as it was, it wouldn’t be long until his steps were hidden.  No one would know he had been out once there was a fresh dusting of white.                   

Trowa picked his way carefully, sidestepping the wires and tent pegs that were cleverly hidden in the snow.  His feet remembered the layout quite well for someone who had been gone so long.  He finished one slow pass around the tent and started a second, this one a little smaller.  He passed tents and trailers he knew, their occupants sleeping quietly through the snowfall.  By the third pass, though, Trowa was starting to shiver.  Snow caked his hair and managed to seep beneath his coat.  He should go inside, before he got sick.  But the quiet was simply too good to leave. 

He closed his eyes half way through the third pass around the circus.  He shouldn’t have been so surprised when he ran into something.

Trowa, rubbing his nose, looked up at the large tent, the flap secured tightly against the cold.  It was oddly fitting, actually, to be stopped here.  When his head had kept him up before, and the tea did nothing for his overactive mind, it was the one place where he could calm himself down enough to sleep.  _If he’ll let me in, at least._

Trowa glanced left and right shortly before sleeping into the tent.  He refastened the flap with a little difficulty.  It was not designed to be closed from the inside, but he managed.  Turning around, Trowa breathed deeply and sighed.  The animal tent was warm and alive.  The fresh smell of skin and fur mixed pleasant with feed and bedding, and not so pleasantly with droppings, just the way he remembered.  Through the darkness, he could hear quiet grunts and grumbles from the animals, the occasional rustle of hay or the rattle of a loosened bar as the animals shifted.  

Trowa moved carefully through the tent.  Hay, mud, and dirt squelched beneath his boots.  He ran his fingers through his hair and over his shoulders, knocking of stray snow.  Some of the animals shifted as he passed.  One or two flicked their tails or ears.  The tigers’ faces actually scrunched.  Trowa lingered for a moment to watch, until the large cats seemed to relax.  He wondered, briefly, if animals dreamed.  Did they have nightmares, like humans, to scrunch their faces in the dark?  Or was it just the intuition that someone who shouldn’t be there was?  

Trowa decided he didn’t really want to know. 

Just before the cage he was looking for, Trowa stopped.  He felt carefully to his left and came across the cold, metal door he had been hoping to find.  He pulled open the refrigerator door, just enough to see inside without disturbing the animals.  He nearly blinded himself.  Squinting, Trowa found the plate was looking for.  He tugged it out.  Trowa started to close the door, paused, and dropped down to his knees instead.  He felt inside the crisper.  It had been filled recently.  A small smile twitched at his mouth when he felt a familiar round shape.  When was the last time he had had an apple? 

Plate in hand, and the apple hanging from his mouth, Trowa closed the refrigerator and continued to the cage.  His teeth were starting to hurt just as he reached it, but there was no way he was going to eat an apple that had been sitting next to raw steak.                              

The lion lifted his head at the sound of his cage door opening, a low growl rumbling from his thick throat. Trowa lingered in the doorway.  He didn’t want to take any chances  Friend he might be, if he was angry, for Trowa waking him or for not being around or for some other transgression he didn't even remember, he would lash out at Trowa.  The gold eyes gleamed in the dark, staring at Trowa for several long minutes.  Trowa clenched down on the stem in his mouth.                

Huffing, the lion lowered his head back to his paws.  The glowing eyes disappeared as he closed his eyes against Trowa’s presence.  Trowa shifted his weight and sighed.  It was not exactly a comforting gesture, but it wasn’t outright refusal either.  A lion’s idea of snubbing.  Trowa could deal with snubbing; he'd been dealing with it a lot lately. _Besides,_ he thought as he glanced at the plate, _he might be a little more welcoming when he sees what he gets out of it._               

Trowa walked slowly into the change, paying attention to the tone of the growls the lion aimed at him.  Warning at the moment.  Mild, tired.  Not quite dangerous yet.  Stopping just outside the reach of a sluggish swipe from a paw, he crouched down.  Watching him carefully, Trowa leaned and set the plate on the hay.  He nudged it forward with his fingers, and then hobbled back a step.  

Trowa stared at him, the lion staring back again with one large eye.  Trowa kept eye contact for as long as he could, breaking it only to glance down at the offering between them.  The lion did not move.  Trowa’s legs were starting to cramp when he seriously began to wonder if a late night snack was not enough to put him back in the other’s good graces.

Suddenly, the lion lurched.  Trowa couldn’t stop himself from scuttling back as he heaved himself up onto his large paws.  He growled low in his throat, louder this time, and fixed Trowa with an oddly aggressive stare.  He stepped closer, and Trowa’s brain decided it was an excellent time to remind him that the lion’s paws were easily the size of his face and that those claws were sharp enough to rip through skin like a knife through wet tissue.  The lion was already in range.  He wouldn’t have time to duck.  _This was a very dumb—_                 

The lion dropped to the ground so suddenly that Trowa fell backwards, apple popping from his mouth.  On his rear, he stared at the lion as it tore into the meat.  His mouth worked into a small smile.   

“Does that mean you’re not mad,” he asked, picking the apple up from his lap.  Trowa waited a moment before inching closer.  He ran a hand through the thick mane, relaxing almost instantly from the familiar warmth.  The lion looked up at him, huffed around his food, and then began a reluctant purr. 

“Not mad then,” he decided, scratching lightly behind the lion’s ear.  The purr turned more genuine.  “What Manuel doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”                         

Crates of varying sizes cluttered two of the cage’s corners, some of them too chewed up and clawed apart to even consider chairs. Trowa eventually found one that would support his weight. He sat down and brushed the apple along his wet sleeve: a silly habit but one he was unable to break.  He bit into the cool hard flesh.  The crunch was abnormally loud in the dark.  Juice slipped down his fingers.  Trowa licked them clean and then noticed the sharp stare the lion was giving him.          

“I don't say anything about your preferences, so don't give me looks about mine.”               

For a while, they were quiet, just chewing their food and enjoying each other’s company.  Or at least Trowa was.  Trowa closed his eyes as enjoyed the apple.  Oddly enough, the stench of raw meat didn't bother him so much. He still felt nauseous, but not as badly as he could.               

The other animals weren't reacting either. Which was rather odd, since an animal's sense of smell was far superior.  Perhaps they were immune; meat was so prevalent in the diets of several of the animals, the smell might have just become a constant, easily ignore after time. And they were on such rigid eating schedules, the presence of food outside of their "eating time" probably no longer drew their attention.  Or they just didn’t care, but that seemed a little too odd.               

A weight settled suddenly on his thighs. Trowa jumped and looked down at the large head suddenly resting in his lap.  This was…different.  He frowned.  The two of them had always been close, as close as a human and lion could hope to get.  But there had never been any physical affection.

Or at least nothing that reminded him of an overgrown house cat anyway. 

Despite the warning bells going off in his head, telling him it was a very bad idea, Trowa leaned forward.  His hands slipped into the thick mane.  He wrapped it around his fingers, carefully not to tug, and waited.  A low rumble vibrated up through his palms and down his legs.  Trowa bent forward a little more, until his cheek was flush against the warm mass of fur.  He sighed and turned his face into it, breathing the pleasant, living scent. 

Trowa flinched as the pressure sent dull pain from his bruises across his face.  They were still fresh enough to hurt even after a week. They still looked fresh enough to hurt, if he really thought about it.  Sick yellow and purple, spreading across his face and neck, accentuating the black scab of his healing lip.   Accentuating his weakness.  The corners of his eyes burned.  _God fucking damn it, not again_.  He rubbed his face in the mane.  The tears still slipped down his face.  The lion shifted from them, pushing Trowa back as he lifted his head.  

“Sorry,” he muttered, hand across his eyes.  “It’s been a weird couple of days.”  The lion gave a low growl.  Trowa rubbed his temples until he nudged Trowa’s thigh with his head.  

“What,” he asked.  The lion fixed him with a long stare.  “No.  I’d rather just forget about it.”  He nudged at his knee, harder this time. “I said no.”  Trowa gasped at a sharp, sudden pain in his thigh.  He stared down at the tooth poking into the flannel pajama bottoms.  “These aren’t mine, you know.  Catherine won’t appreciate you putting teeth marks in her pajamas.” 

The tooth retracted just enough to be out of his clothes but still a very prominent threat.Trowa frowned at him. _Don’t I get a choice in anything?_               

Sighing, Trowa fell back onto the crate, grunting softly when his back it the edge of the wood.  His arms dangled over his head and he played with a couple of strands of straw.  The large paws padded to the side of him; he stared up at the face now filling his view.               

“This week just,” he paused.  Just what?  Been dreadful?  Terrible?  Agonizing?  _All of the above._   Trowa let go of the straw and ran his hands over his face.  _Well, to borrow a phrase from Duo._   “This week just sucked, in every sense of the word.” 

Trowa fought back a wince as the head nudged his bruised cheek. 

He had no idea why, but very soon Trowa found himself talking, the words tumbling one over another faster and faster as he explained, to a lion of all things, everything.  It wasn’t as if the other could understand even a quarter of what he said, but emotion he could understood.  And they had always been very good at understanding one another.                             

“And, of course,” he said through the hands covering his face.  “I completely broke in front of her.  As if things weren’t bad enough, I just had to go and do… _that_.  That, for at least two hours.  I don’t even know why.  I should know better.  She’s never going to leave me alone tonight.  Ever.  It’s Catherine.  She’s going to hound me for months.”             

A soft puff of air ruffled his hair and caressed his face as the lion huffed.  _Well, at least he agrees._ Trowa lowered his hands, letting his knuckles scrap against the hay-strewn floor.  The lion, laying near his head, watched him closely.                             

“How could I have told her,” he, wondering aloud, watched the other tilt his head.  “I mean, I _never_ told her.  Any of it.  Ever.  And this wasn’t the most—wasn’t the worst of them.”  Teeth worried at the cut-up inside of his cheek.  He was going to need stitches soon, no doubt.              

“I just,” he started, voice cracking slightly.  “I don’t know why.  Why I showed such, such _weakness_.”  Trowa bit the word out.  “I know better than that.  I learned my lesson.  And honestly, there’s no difference.  Between this and, and then.  It’s happened before.  I’ve dealt with this before.”  _And a whole lot better, too_.                

The patience he exhibited, waiting for Trowa to accept whatever it was that he already knew, that he obviously knew considering the steady, almost condescending, pitying, look in his eyes, was infuriating.  There was nothing true.  There was nothing new.  There couldn’t be.  Because then, well then everything would be different.  Then he would have to admit that everything was different.  And he wasn’t sure if he could do that. 

“It isn’t fair,” he muttered.  “They aren’t supposed to know.  It’s not supposed to be this way.” _I, I can’t do this.  I can’t deal with this.   Not like this.  They aren’t supposed to know._               

Hitting the straw-strewn ground was much more painful than Trowa might have thought.  If he had remembered he was sprawled over a crate, he probably wouldn’t have tried to curl up in what he would never admit was a fetal position.  Now that he was there though, aching in the wet hay, Trowa bent his knees towards his chest.   He clenched his jaw against his chattering teeth and the sound that threatened to claw out of his throat.  Trowa ducked his head to push it down.  

A solid weight dropped down behind him.  Trowa’s entire body jerked at the sudden unexpected warmth at his back.  He unfolded himself slowly and turned into the warm, solid life behind him.  He felt the heart pound near his head..  Breathing as deeply as he dare, Trowa closed his eyes and let his head rest against him for as long as the lion would allow. 

The lion shifted only once, to move his paw from under Trowa’s shoulder and cross it over the other beneath his chin.                               

He had no idea how long he stayed like that, in the dark, spooning with a lion he had known for only a few years.  But eventually Trowa felt a dull pain on the top of his head.  He ignored the first instance, merely brushing his fingers over his head.  The second one made him open his eyes; you just didn’t ignore the lion growling and nudging you in the head with his nose.                

“What,” he groaned, pushing his face back into the fur.  A paw landed carefully on the top of his head and pushed, claws still buried in the pads.  Trowa grunted and rolled away.  He stretched out on the straw, and glared up at the other.  “Tired of me already?”  The lion huffed.  Standing he padded over to Trowa.  Ducking his head, he butted at Trowa until his nose somehow got beneath his back and pushed him up.  “Okay.  I’m up, I’m up.  You can stop anytime now—”              

The tent was light.  Not the bright gold of full morning, but light enough to be after dawn.  Pale gold seeped through the cracks in the canvas.  Trowa watched a thin strip of it as it lay across the floor.  _I fell asleep?_ _When did I fall asleep?_   When didn’t exactly matter anymore, of course.  The fact of the matter was that he did, and if he didn’t leave soon, he was going to get caught as the circus roused.             

“Yeah.  That would have been suspicious,” he said.  Trowa glanced back at the lion.  He reached back and stroked the mane.  “Thanks.”              

Trowa stumbled to his feet after one more stroke.  He could stand on the ankle much better.  Trowa still took his time, just to be safe.  He paused at the cage door and glanced back.  The lion paced slowly around the crates before dropping heavily to the ground.  He crossed his paws underneath his head.  He sighed and closed his eyes.  Trowa wondered suddenly, as he watched the deep rise and fall of his chest, if the other had slept at all.              

Trowa slipped out of the cage, locked it, and hurried towards the tent flap.  _Too smart to be normal._              

Trowa flinched as soon as he managed to slip out of the tent and fasten the flap again behind him.  The sun had risen just enough to turn the white grounds into one giant glare.  He covered his eyes with his hand. He had to wait until most of the red spots were gone before he picked his way carefully back to the trailer.  

The trailer was dark and quiet when Trowa slipped back inside and shut the door.  He blinked hard as the splotches of red and purple seemed to worse with the dark.  Trowa pulled off his shoes and coat and left them by the door before creeping back to that god awful couch.  He picked up the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders before lying down, trying to find some comfortable place.

Oddly enough, he found it.  Trowa had to curl his legs beneath the blanket and bury his face into the cushion, but he found it.  He sighed deeply against the warm fabric and closed his eyes.  He just needed to rest them for a minute.  Get the splotches to go away.  It shouldn’t take longer than a few minutes.             

A soft weight fell lightly onto his cheek.  It moved in gentle circles across his skin.  Trowa sighed and turned a bit into the soothing stroke.  He heard soft, not so distance laughter and frowned a little.  Shifting, Trowa opened his eyes a bit.  Catherine’s nose was barely three inches from his.

Catherine chuckled when he gasped and jerked back into the couch.  She stroked his hair.  “Good morning, Trowa.”

“Good morning, Catherine.  Please don’t do that.”

“Couldn’t help myself,” she said with a soft smile.  She tucked some hair behind his ear.  “I made breakfast.  Are you hungry?”  The question was barely out before both of them heard Trowa’s stomach snarl at the thought of food.  “Take that as a yes.  Go get dressed while I get everything on the table.  Your clothes are in the bathroom.  They should be dry by now.”              

“Thank you, Catherine,” he said, still fighting an embarrassed flush.  Catherine patted his head once before getting up.  Trowa took his time getting to the bathroom, stretching and sitting up slowly, rubbing at the sore muscles in his back and legs.  When he got to the bathroom, his clothes were there, hanging over the curtain rod.  Trowa fingered his shirt and pants.  Cold and stiff, but dry, and that was what really mattered.              

“Someone looks better,” Catherine said with a smile when Trowa came back to the table a few minutes later.  He shrugged.  “Well, you do."               

“If you say so,” Trowa said.  Catherine pouted and swatted at him with a dishtowel.               

“Go sit down and eat before your stomach caves in.”               

Deciding that it was probably better not to tell her how physically impossible that was, Trowa ducked under the swing and headed for his seat.   He stared down at the table.  Just who was she expecting?  There were at least seven different main breakfast dishes, and far too many bowls of fruit and plates of bread.  _There’s enough food to feed a small army_ _, or Duo after a workout._   

“Expecting company,” he asked as he sat down and picked up a fresh mug of tea.               

“Nope.”               

“Then I think you got a little too happy with the mixing bowls this morning.”                

“It’s called ‘leftovers,’ and considering how hungry you were, and how loud your stomach is, I think you’ll eat most of it.” 

“Except the bacon,” he said, eyeing it with distaste.  Catherine slid over and nudged the small plate towards her side.

“Except the bacon.  Eat.”               

Trowa was halfway through his tea, and his second roll, when Catherine put a bowl in front of him.  She rolled her eyes and chuckled when he tried to hide devoured roll in his hands.  Trowa popped the rest of it into his mouth when she turned before looking at the bowl.  He froze as he reached for the spoon.  The too-familiar smell of cinnamon and nutmeg drifted up to his nose.  Trowa swallowed as the bread threatened to come back up.              

“It’s not going to jump up and bite you, Trowa,” Catherine said.  Trowa wasn’t so sure.  He glanced at her shortly, watching her eat her own bowl with obvious pleasure, before reaching for his spoon.  The first mouthful was awful, the next ones just as bad.

She made it well, of course.  Not as well as Quatre but very close.  He just wasn’t sure he could eat it without wanting to scream.  _You are going to.  You’re not going to like it, but you’re going to do it.  You’ve screamed enough for the next couple of years, I think._                

“It’s very good,” he said when he could make his mouth work.  Catherine didn’t seem to notice.               

“Thanks.  I actually swiped this off of Quatre, and—” There was no way for him to hide the wince.  Catherine noticed immediately.  She bit down on whatever else she was going to say and stared at the porridge with something almost like horror.  Trowa sighed softly and took another bite.  It wasn’t until after the third that Catherine continued eating.

Neither of them seemed to be very fond of the porridge now.  They pushed aside the bowls after a few minutes and found other things to pick at.

Catherine broke the silence after several long, awkward minutes.  “Trowa,” she said, pulling a roll apart with nervous fingers. Trowa looked at her over the edge of his mug.  “Listen, I, I know that it’s…it’s difficult, but—” 

“Don’t,” Trowa said, cutting her off as kindly as he could.  “Please don’t.  I really, really don’t want to talk about this.  Not right now.”               

Catherine stared at him for a moment before standing. Trowa swallowed and looked down at his hands, clenched around the mug.  He probably could have said that much better.  A lot better.  So when her arms wrapped around his shoulders and squeezed, Trowa couldn’t stop himself from jumping.               

“Whenever you’re ready,” she insisted.  Trowa sighed but nodded, leaning his head back onto her shoulder.  _But what if that’s never?_   

Trowa lost his appetite first, so he started to clear the table.  He had apparently eaten enough that Catherine didn’t complain too much.  While he carried the empty, or half-empty, plates to the counter and started finding Tupperware and plastics bags to store the leftovers, Catherine slipped into conversation mode.  There were apparently a large number of things she had been “dying” to tell him, things that had gotten rudely interrupted last night and which had absolutely nothing to do with last night and were therefore perfectly safe. 

The conversation was blessed one-sided.  Catherine prattled on between sips of coffee, changing her train of thought wherever she saw fit.  Trowa nodded or shrugged where appropriate but mostly concentrated on the leftovers and dishes.  He did at least mutter “is that so,” once, when he was refilling her coffee mug for her.  She had smiled brightly at that and nearly spilled her fresh coffee.               

Catherine changed the topic again when he was half way through the dishes, up to his elbows in soap.  “I have some errands I need to run today, Trowa,” she said.  Trowa glanced at her over his shoulder as he hunted for a plate that had slipped through his fingers.  “Shouldn’t take more than a couple hours.”  Finding it he nodded and rinsed it.  “So you can relax here, or take a walk and see everyone again.  And when I get back, I’ll make us a great early dinner and you can head back before dark.  You have work tomorrow, right?”              

Trowa dropped another plate.  He barely missed getting soap in his eye.  “Yes.”             

“I’ll make sure I’m home by one.  Two at the absolute latest.”              

“Well,” Trowa said as he found the plate, rinsed it, and started looking for cutlery. “That’s very nice of you.  But wouldn’t it be better if I came with you?”  

Catherine’s mug had to be empty.  It was the only reason she wasn’t spitting coffee all over the table.              

“Trowa,” she said slowly.  “You hate shopping.”

No: Trowa loathed shopping.  It was, in his opinion, a ridiculously, almost torturous endeavor.  Why anyone would willingly subject themselves to tightly-packed rooms reeking of overpriced perfumes or cleaning fluids and incompetent, arrogant salesclerks in a pointless quest for something both expensive and ultimately unnecessary was beyond him.  He would rather let Duo perform surgery on him, without anesthesia.  But Catherine was fond of the pastime, and he was fond of her.  And when it came down to it, trudging along behind her as she skipped from store to store would be much more enjoyable than running into Thomas.                           

Trowa shrugged.  “I just thought you might need a hand carrying things.  And I have no idea when I’ll be coming by next so—” 

Catherine set her head on his shoulder as she hugged him from behind.  “You’re such a liar.  A very sweet liar.”            

“I never said I was going to enjoy it.”  Catherine huffed and pinched his cheek.  She ducked out of the way before he managed to splash dishwater at her.

Catherine helped him put away the rest of the food and the washed dishes, once she was sure he wasn’t going to drench her in oily water, so the rest of the cleaning went quickly.  They slipped on their coats and shoes, after Catherine found him a spare pair of gloves because his were still soaked.  There were at least one side too small but Trowa didn’t say anything.  Catherine stepped out first.  Trowa locked the door behind them.

It was nearly nine, or Trowa assumed it was, but with the heavy layer of snow on the ground, most of the circus seemed to think it was a good day to start slow.  They passed very few people as they crossed the grounds, most notably the ringmaster.  He stopped momentarily to mutter a less-than-polite “good morning” before stomping away, growling about lazy performers and tent hands.  And then they saw Manuel.  

Coming out of the animal tent.  With what looked suspiciously like a plate.  Trowa couldn’t have been that stupid.

He was too far away to do more than wave in their direction, but the gesture was oddly half-hearted for the usually genial, energetic man.  He was far too focused on the round ceramic (because it was the plate, because Trowa was that stupid) plate in his hand.  Manuel’s hand went to his head halfway through the wave, scratching at it.  Once they had skirted around the main tent, Trowa dared to look back.  Manuel’s shoulders rose and fell with a sigh before he shrugged.  He tucked the plate under his arm and headed back towards the trailers. 

Trowa barely managed to bit back a relieved sigh.

“Next time you decided to take a midnight stroll,” Catherine said as they stepped onto the sidewalk.  “That ends with a lion’s cage, remember the plate.   Manuel’s not _that_ forgetful.”

Trowa, hands in his pockets, stared at her, mouth closed only because he had his jaw clenched.  Catherine smiled softly. 

“I heard you knock over the chair,” _Of course you did._ “And when I went to check, you were gone, with your coat and shoes.”

“I went for a walk.”

“You don’t do midnight walks." 

“It was three A.M. and sometimes I do.  It’s a recent habit.”                                               

“Got it,” she said.  They passed by a book store and a small café, before she spoke again.  “You did notice that those foot prints went from my door to the tent right?” 

“No, they didn’t.  I went around first—” Catherine’s mouth widened before Trowa caught himself.  He sighed and shook his head as she slipped her arm through his.  “Sometimes, Catherine.”                           

 

 

*-----*-----* 

“Okay, wow, I think you’ve had enough.” Trowa started at the voice.  Sort of.  He shifted back, slowly and with a hard sway of his shoulders, as a hand suddenly appeared over the top of his glass.  The fingers of it were oddly blurry, making a thick fleshy glove that seemed to melt over the glass.  The melted skin tightened and pulled the glass from Trowa’s limp fingers.  

Trowa blinked slowly, an odd film making it difficult to open his eyes.  He glared up at the bartender through his hair.   He reached for the glass again, or tried to.  The bartender shook his head.           

“Nope.  You’re done for tonight.”               

“Give it back,” Trowa said, his tongue thick in his mouth.  The bartender looked him up and down; Trowa stupidly tried to follow the move and thought he might slip off the stool.  The bartender smiled.  Keeping the glass well out of Trowa’s reach, he leaned forward.               

“Tell you what: you answer one question, and I’ll give you your drink and pay your whole tab.  How’s that sound?”  It sounded pretty good. Trowa must have nodded (he wasn’t exactly sure since the whole room seemed to be rocking up and down) because the bartender smiled.  “Awesome.  One question, I’ll make it easy for you.  How many fingers am I holding up?”

Trowa snorted.  Of all the stupid questions.  He stared hard at the hand the bartender held up.  Three fingers.  Definitely three fingers, or was it four?  Trowa awkwardly snapped his mouth closed and tried to focus.  This would be so much easier if the hand would stop moving.  It kept moving, slowly, spinning and swaying.  He would think it was three fingers, but then it would spin into four, sway down to two and sway all the way back to six.  _He’s cheating,_ Trowa decided finally. 

Which meant that if subtracted at least two from the seven fingers now swinging in front of his, he would probably hit on the right answer.  Or at least close enough.                              

“F-five,” he said.  The bartender looked at him, looked at his fingers, and then looked at Trowa again.  Trowa’s mouth slipped into a lopsided smirk.  _Got him._                

“Yeah, you’re trashed,” he said.  Trowa blinked and watched him turn and tip the glass oddly sideways.  It took Trowa nearly ten seconds to realize that he was dumping it out in a sink.  A soft growl crept out of his throat. Or he thought it had been a growl.  The bartender apparently disagreed.  “Don’t whine at me.”  Trowa didn’t _whine_. “You’ll thank me in the morning when your hangover is horrible instead of torture.”   

He rinsed and dried the glass and stacked it on a small stack of them near some empty bottles.  The bartender dried his hands before turning back to Trowa.  He held his hand out again, palm up this time. 

“Keys please.”

 _You’ve got to be fucking kidding._ Hand over the keys to his motorcycle, a motorcycle Duo wasn’t even allowed to look out on his particularly clumsy days, to an arrogant prick with too many holes in his head?  Trowa sneered at the spinning face and pushed himself back from the bar, and nearly right onto the floor.  The bartender grabbed his forearm.  Trowa landed against the bar with a grunt.

“Please don’t,” he said, holding onto Trowa’s arm. Trowa glared and he still refused to let go.  “Don’t, okay?  I don’t want to start a scene but I will.”

“Get off.”

“You can’t drive like this, okay?   You can’t.  You’re not even going to make it to the door.  So just give me your keys before you do something stupid.  I promise I’ll get your bike someplace safe.”

“Fuck you,” Trowa growled, pulling on the hand while feeling around for his helmet with his foot.  The bartender sighed and shook his head.

“I really didn’t want to do this.”

Trowa expected to be blind-sided.  He expected to get popped in the face, probably the nose or the temple, by the arrogant bastard.  A part of him was hoping for it.  The two of them would end up on the floor, and drunk or not, Trowa would kick his ass.  He might get stepped on a few times, but he’d manage to roll the bartender under him and beat his head back into the floor.  It sounded oddly therapeutic.  So when Trowa’s cheek suddenly met the cool bar after a gesture that was almost caring, he found his scattered thoughts grinding to a stop.

The bartender continued to stroke his hair.  “Thank god you’re an affectionate drunk.  I’d get so fired for punching you,” he said.  Trowa was frowning at the bar too much, and enjoying the touch too much, to answer.  “Now can you just stay here for a second while I—”

Trowa heard the shout from down the bar and flinched; now that his head was down, he realized he had a pounding headache.  The bartender swore, glaring down the bar.

“Seriously?  Right now?  They can’t see I’m dealing with a drunk,” he mumbled.  “Fine.  Just stay.  Here.  Right here.  Don’t move, I’ll be back soon.  I’ll get you a cab and get you home.  Just stay.”  Trowa sneered up at him as he walked away.  He pressed his hands against the bar and pushed.  His body, and more specifically his head, was much too heavy. 

It wasn’t so much of a problem until Trowa realized that the music, with its too-heavy bass, was sending vibrations through the wood. Vibrations that made his already pounding headache border on blinding.  Trowa managed to work his arms under his chin.  They weren’t much of a cushion, but it was better than nothing.  Trowa stared across the bar, watching the condensation drip of glasses and puddle, and then the puddles ripple when someone bumped the bar.  Soon even that made his head hurt.  Trowa closed his eyes tightly.

“Isn’t this a pleasant surprise,” someone said from behind him.  A heavy hand landed on his shoulder.  Trowa twitched at the sudden contact, only mildly disturbed that he hadn’t noticed someone coming up through the haze that had dropped over him.  He shrugged the weight off and shifted his arms, bringing one up to cover part of his face.

The hand returned, this time with a friend.  They gripped his shoulders none-too-gently and pulled.  Trowa swayed as he went upright, the room tilting hard onto its side.  Trowa growled, gripping the bar to keep himself from falling before swatting at the hands.  One left, only to reappear around his stomach to hold him on the stool.

“How many drinks have you had,” the voice asked.                                                                                            

Trowa shrugged and muttered what he thought was “a few.”             

“A few.  A few what,” he asked.  Trowa frowned.  He recognized the voice; he recognized the hands.  He _knew_ he did, but he just couldn’t put a name to the low tenor and big palms surrounding him.  Not that it actually mattered.  The man had to be a friend.  Trowa wasn’t drunk enough—and drunk was what he was, he realized—to miss the difference between friend and enemy.  The bartender, for example, was an obvious enemy.  The hair on the back of his neck wasn’t rising.  He wasn’t tensing or looking for pressure points and weaknesses to exploit, so the voice behind him had to be friendly.

He did wished he recognized it though.  And that it would stop talking.  Talking made his head hurt.                        

Trowa must have said that out loud, because the man behind him chuckled.  “Alright,” he said.  “Let’s get you out of here.”  The hands shifted, gripping him beneath his biceps carefully.  Trowa’s legs tangled as he was eased up off the stool.  He stumbled forward.  “Easy now.”           

“Hey, get your hands off him!”  Trowa’s head snapped up.  When he could see straight, he watched with mild interest as the bartender stumbled to a stop in front of them.  He looked the man behind Trowa up and down, swallowed, and straightened his clothes.  For someone suddenly so nervous, though, the bartender kept his voice steady.  “You need to just back away.”

“Do I really,” he asked.  Trowa hissed as the grip around his arms tightened.  It wasn’t totally unwelcome, since it kept him off the floor, but the protectiveness—or was it possessiveness—was unusual.  Trowa pulled at the grip.              

“Look, he’s drunk.  He’s not thinking clearly, so just back off, okay?  Find someone else, I’m calling him a cab right now.”             

“Not necessary,” the man behind him growled.  Trowa blinked.  How interesting.  The bartender’s face turned an obvious shade of red even in the bad light, considering how hard he started grinding his teeth and how tightly he clenched his fist. 

“ ‘Not necessary’?  You think I was born yesterday?  I’m not letting him walk out of here with anyone but a cabbie.”

“That’s what’s unnecessary.  I’m perfectly capable of taking him home myself.  We happen to be familiar with each other.”                          

Now the fingernails were digging in.  Hard.  Trowa squirmed and swatted at them. 

The bartender smirked.  “Are you now?  He doesn’t seem to want to go home with you.”               

The man behind him chuckled.  “He gets like this when he’s drunk,” he said, fingers ghosting up Trowa’s neck and face to sift through his hair.  “The drunker he is, the worse he acts.”  As if to prove his point, Trowa turned his head to try and bite at the hand now patting his head like he was some kind of dog. “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine.  I’ll call his roommates on the way so they know where he is, and we’ll decide what to do with him.”               

 _Oh my god, it’s Zechs._ Of course, it had to be Zechs.  The voice was little—a bit deeper than usual maybe, almost accented differently—but obviously the music and his headache were playing tricks with his ears.  And Zechs had recently (since the sting, recently) developed the absolutely irritating habit of messing with Trowa’s hair every time he passed his desk.  He’d fluff it once, running his hand up the back of Trowa’s head, just to see if there was glue that day or not.  

Yes, it was Zechs.  It had to be Zechs.  No one else, besides from Duo, touched his hair.  And hadn’t Wufei actually complained to him a couple of weeks ago that he still hadn’t completely stopped Zechs from the occasional bar-hopping?  Trowa must’ve have picked the bar Zechs had decided to hit tonight. 

While he had been coming to that realization, Zechs and the bartender had been arguing enough to draw attention to themselves.  A few more minutes, and there might be a punch or two.           

“I’m not letting you,” the bartender said.            

“I don’t really think it’s up to you,” Zechs replied, voice tight enough that Trowa knew the first swing would come from him.            

Which was a better reaction than Trowa could have expected from anyone else.  God forbid Quatre or Duo, or worse Wufei or Heero, had found him slipping off a stool in a bar.  Quatre, if he was even ever caught in a bar, would be so palpable disappointed in him that Trowa would want to fall off the stool just so he had the chance to sink through the floor.  Duo wouldn’t be disappointed; he’d be disgustingly amused, and would probably slide in beside him.  Wufei and Heero wouldn’t say anything.  They certainly wouldn’t waste words with the bartender.  They’d just smack the bartender’s head against the bar if he argued and drag Trowa out.  Or carry his unconscious body out like a carpet.

Zechs was a good thing.  Argumentative but more likely to react in ways that were not embarrassing or harmful to himself.

“For the last time.  Get your hands off him before I get the manager to throw you out." 

“Oh please, call him.  I would be happy to tell him how abusive you’ve been to a paying customer.”

“And I’ll be happy to file a harassment report.”

Trowa frowned, swaying in Zechs’ hands.  He was tired of being fought over like some little girl who couldn’t take care of himself, and he was especially tired of it not going anywhere.  Normally Zechs could win any argument with a few well-placed words.  He was off his game tonight, though.  Badly.  And the resulting shouting match was making his temples pound hard enough to black out his vision.

If Zechs was not going to get him out of there before his head knocked him out, then Trowa would.

“Enough,” Trowa growled.  His tongue was half-stuck to the roof of his mouth but he managed to make himself loud enough and stubborn enough to get at least the bartender’s attention.  “Shut up already and let’s go.”

Trowa ignored the bartender’s open mouth shock and the way Zechs’ hands loosened from surprise.  He ducked down to find his helmet.  Zechs caught him around the waist as he nearly tumbled forward.  He let Trowa flounder in his hands as Trowa hunted for the helmet, eventually managing to hook his fingers around it. 

“Are you sure about this man,” the bartender asked when Trowa straightened with Zechs’ help.  He glared at Zechs over his shoulder.  “Five minutes and I’ll have a cab here.”                             

“He’s fine,” Zechs said, turning Trowa from the bar.  “Put his bill on my tab and get back to your guests before I get you fired.” 

Trowa was not aware that walking could ever be this difficult.  The ache in his ankle was back, the pain missing thanks to the alcohol but the weakness that accompanied it all too present.  With the headache, and now the dizziness, Trowa was surprised he didn’t fall face-first to the floor.  If Zechs wasn’t there, he would.  Zechs stirred him to the door, pulling and pushing him carefully whenever Trowa swayed off balance.  A couple times, after a couple of impressive stumbles, he was swore he heard Zechs chuckle.  Trowa yanked himself out of his grip every time, only to stumble again.             

“Enough of that.  Just let me walk you out,” he suggested, his arm tight around Trowa’s shoulders and arm.  Trowa pulled on the grip.  He slipped it, got two steps that were happily steady, and then nearly fell straight to the floor when someone bumped into him.  He hissed as Zechs caught him under the arm, yanking his still aching chest.  Over his own hard panting, he heard Zechs swear.  At least he thought it was a swear; he had never heard that word before.  He had no idea Zechs knew another language, but he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised.  Zechs had an education, unlike most of them.

Zechs guided Trowa outside, nearly pushing him out the door.  The cold air hit him like sledge hammer: momentarily clearing before making everything much worse.  The streetlamps exploded in his eyes, and without the music blaring in his ears, Trowa realized how loud the bar had been.  The world was muffled, which was very disturbing.  Trowa shook his head hard.  Zechs caught him when he fell. 

“As if that wasn’t going to happen,” he said.  Even without the music, he sounded…different.  _But I can barely hear myself breathe right._ “Let’s try something new.”

The ground dropped out from under him.  It took Trowa a minute to recognize the hard pressure under his back and knees as arms, and the sharp keening sound as his own gasp.   Zechs chuckled.

The walk to Zechs’ car was much quicker but much worse.  The constant rocking that came with Zechs’ heavy, hurrying steps tipped Trowa’s stomach constantly to his throat.  The hard streaks of light as the streetlamps swayed in front of him certainly didn’t help.  Trowa shut his eyes tightly to try and keep a grip on himself.  The darkness somehow made the rocking worse.  By the time they reached the car, Trowa had his cold-sweat soaked knuckles pressed against his mouth.

“If I sit you down for a second,” Zechs said, apparently unaware of how fast the bile was bouncing up his throat, “do you think you can stay up?”  Trowa nodded shakily, not trusting himself to open his mouth.  Zechs set him down on the truck of the car.  Trowa felt the hard metal edge press against his thighs.  Zechs closed Trowa’s fingers over it.  He squeezed once before moving away.

Trowa dug into the trunk as he started to sway.  He kept his head down, hoping that the pressure on his throat would keep the vomit down.  It wasn’t.  Trowa doubled over and shivered.  He was going to be sick.  He was going to fall over and be sick, or be sick and then fall over.  Either way, it was going to be unpleasant.

Trowa gasped as he was suddenly yanked off the trunk.  “I don’t care if you’re drunk,” Zechs growled, turning Trowa so fast in his arms that the tenuous hold Trowa had on his stomach broke.  “Don’t you dare throw up on my car.”  Trowa barely heard him.  Bent over Zechs’ arm, his hair held mostly back by a hard hand, Trowa vomited onto the pavement.  Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes as his stomach emptied painfully. 

Zechs’ fingers rubbed gently at his side.  “Easy now,” he said softly.  “Don’t tense like that.  Just let it out.”

Eventually, Trowa’s stomach emptied, the muscles contracting slowing down as he coughed.  His entire body trembled.  Trowa wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, groaning when Zechs pulled him up carefully.  His body swayed back against Zech’s chest.  Zechs chuckled softly.

“So that’s how I can get you to cooperate,” he murmured.  Trowa didn’t have time to ask what he meant.  He couldn’t even wonder.  Zechs was already guiding him to the passenger door, and exhaustion was already pulling Trowa down.  Zechs didn’t have to carry him, but he did have to practically drag him.  And when Trowa cracked his head on the roof of the car trying to get in by himself, he had to ease Trowa down onto the seat.               

“If you didn’t have a headache before, you certainly do now,” Zechs sighed.  Trowa just grit his teeth and held his head.  It actually hurt too much to be embarrassing.  Yet. 

Zechs eased him back onto the chair, pushing his head back softly.  Trowa sighed softly.  The slight recline relieved so much pressure from his still rolling stomach.   Trowa heard a soft click and felt something tight over his hips.  Trowa opened his eyes a bit and watched Zechs adjust the seatbelt over him.

With the light and the nausea and the headache and blacking out, Trowa could have sworn that…but no.  That was impossible.  He would never see him again, not awake anyway.  That face would only haunt his dreams.  That voice would only whisper at him in the dark of his room or his nightmares.

He smiled softly at Trowa.  At least he thought it was a smile.  It could have been leer.  The light was bright of his teeth for him to see straight.  But Zechs didn’t leer, not at him anyway.  Trowa shut his eyes. 

A hand landed lightly on his cheek.  “Get some sleep.  You’re going to need it.”

He certainly did.  Trowa was too drunk and too hurt.  He needed to sleep.  He needed to sort out his spinning head.  He needed to remember that Zechs never ever had a tan, and certainly never one that dark.  It should have made him cold with dread. 

Right now, though, it didn’t.   

               

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8 may be the chapter I hate the most. I literally rewrote pretty much everything, and spent a very long time trying to rethink the structure and the necessity of certain parts. It feels like an entirely different chapter from what it was. I'm not sure if I'm happy about that.
> 
> Chapter 8, I will fix you. You still need fixing. I have chapter 9 to edit and 22 to write, but when I'm done, I will fix you. Count on it (yes I often talk about Chains like it is both a child and a sworn enemy. Just depends on the day).


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nizar struggles with Fahd's idiosyncrasies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where those Original Character tags really start to come into play.

               

Allah was a vindictive, sadistic bastard.               

It would certainly explain a lot about Nizar’s situation.  Whether or not he was a devote Muslim or a practitioner of Islamic lip service didn’t matter to Allah.  He could pay homage to Mecca with mind-numbing fervor, live by the empty rules of the priests, and dedicate his life to the tutelage and salvation offered in the Koran, and  Allah would still allow the horrible apparition that was even now materializing before Nizar’s eyes.  Obviously, he enjoyed torturing Nizar.  Was this a punishment some sin, forgotten or acted upon unaware?  Couldn’t Nizar just be beheaded or tortured?  Castration would be more welcomed than—               

“Nizar, you’re still awake?  The sun isn’t even up yet.   Your arthritis isn’t bothering you again, is it?”               

—than a prince walking through the door carrying what appeared to be a corpse.  _Damn you, for chaining me to this boy for eternity!_                

Nizar bowed stiffly, glaring into carpet.  “Dawn is not so far off, my lord,” he started after breathing deeply through his nose and unclenching his jaw. “When the time his lordship assured me he would return had passed—” _Which was three hours ago._   “And still he did not appear, I was loath to sleep until either he returned or some news was sent of his sudden, unwelcome and undeserved demise.”               

If Fahd had had his brains splattered on the pavement while dry humping some Western whore.  Did he even consider the dangers of this society?               

“Nizar,” Fahd said. Nizar glanced up, smiling inwardly at the look of annoyance on his prince’s face.  It was so satisfying to see that he could still aggravate him on occasion.  “How long have you served my family?”               

“Several decades, my lord.”               

“Yes,” he agreed.  Juggling the body between his arms as gently as he apparently could, Fahd shrugged out of his winter coat and hung it on the row of pegs.  Nizar grit his teeth at the corpse’s muttered complaint.  “And how long have you been serving me personally?”               

“Twenty years.”  _The longest of my life.  Your father was never this damn trying._                

He nodded.  “So.  Twenty years.  Twenty years of loyal service, twenty years as protector, guide, confidant—”              

“In private company,” Nizar reminded.                

“Yes, private company, that isn’t the point.  The point, Nizar, is it’s been twenty years since you’ve started working for me personally.  Don’t you think it’s time to drop the honorifics?” Fahd demanded.  “You don’t honestly put any stock in them, do you?”               

Nizar took the questions as a sign that the time for humble subservience was officially over.  Straightening, he fixed the idiot with a dark stare, one that didn’t bother him in the list.  Fahd blinked innocently, which made Nizar’s jaw tighten.  Twenty years and he was finally immune to Nizar’s looks, but Nizar still suffered a lack of that same immunity.  It just wasn’t fair.  _Audacious, ignorant son of a whore.  Why do you insist on these games?  We have more important things to do._

“And what does my prince expect of me?  To speak plainly in his presence?  Chastise him for his childish mistakes?  Consider him as the immature brat that he is?  The same man who will be king, and who could, at a word, have any one of my body parts removed for insolence?”  Snorting, Nizar shook his head.  “I happen to like my limbs exactly where they are.  And if that means I must address an adult-sized toddler in a manner which he is entirely undeserving of, obligated to me by his rank, then so be it.”               

Nizar realized far too late the clever trap he had stumbled in to.               

“Do age, wisdom, and experience count for nothing anymore,” Fahd asked after a moment of silence.  The delicate tone almost surprised Nizar.  “Or must they always pale beneath that word: rank.” Fahd’s black eyes shone almost wetly suddenly.  He looked up at Nizar with such childish longing and admiration.  Nizar’s spine stiffened.  “Do you know how tightly the concept constricts me, Nizar?  How it chokes me some days?  Is it so wrong of me to occasionally long for the days of simple master and pupil, when you were my superior in age and wisdom?  You were my teacher and guide before I could even stand.  Is it wrong of me to wish those days returned?”               

Damn him and his perfectly feigned adoration.  Those looks would be the death of him.                

“You are a treacherous snake, Fahd,” Nizar spat, arms crossed over his chest.  “And it will get you into serious trouble someday.”               

Innocence melted.  Fahd flashed a toothy grin.  “If such a fate comes to pass, we will only have you to blame.  After all, you taught me a great many things.”               

“And damn you for being so diligent.”   Fahd, rolling his eyes, sidled past him with full arms.               

“So you’ve said,” he purred as he made his way up the hall.  

Nizar followed after checking on the two guards positioned outside the penthouse door.  Their broad shoulders were pressed back into the wall on either side, chins dropped on their chests, but at least they weren’t actually asleep this time.  Their eyes rolled up and down the corridor.  Nizar didn’t have the patience to reprimand them.   Slamming the door would be enough to snap them back to attention.  He smirked as he heard the stumbling after the door slammed shut before shaking his head.  Honestly, the boys they let into the academy were getting worse every year.                

Fahd, glancing at him over his shoulder, arched an eyebrow.  He shook his head after a second and continued to the living room.   Gathering up the small stack of files he’d left on a side table—the actual reason for Nizar’s lack of sleep; they needed Fahd‘s immediate attention—Nizar fell into step behind him.               

Westerners could never understand the nuances of culture, but Nizar really should have been surprised.  They had such narrow minds.  So assured, they were, of the excellence their cities and countries; so accustomed to the subservience of lesser nations.  It was disgusting.  Nizar would take pleasure from the minor scandals he and Fahd occasionally caused, if he didn’t have to fix all after.  The worst, by far, had been the earliest.  Fahd, high prince and dignitary, had arrived at a press conference with his chief of staff and body guard at his heels, three steps behind and on the left.  Within a day, there were rumors flying among news, nobles, and politicians concerning Nizar’s loyalty.  To the left of all places, they gasped.  Didn’t Fahd know that that was the side of ill intent?               

Did the West suffer a logic deficiency?  Were they really that stupid?  Who cared about their traditions where anything left-originating was inheritably evil?  Following on the left side was logical.  The heart was located on the left side of the body, not the right.  And most assassins preferred to strike when their target’s back was turned.  So didn’t commonsense dictate that following behind and to the left of a dignitary was a more efficient way to ensure that their back remained knifeless?  

Apparently not.  They were still talking about it.               

Nizar had no love for the West, which was no secret.  He, on occasion, openly expressed his disdain towards Western cultural as a whole.  Everything from their food to their clothes, their cities to their speech, irritated him almost as much as his immature charge.  Fahd found it extremely amusing.  Watching Nizar’s mouth tighten at the mere mention of one of the West’s inane quips was apparently the most entertaining thing Fahd got to see, almost every day. 

Idioms were by far the worst, and Fahd had actually made of point of telling Nizar how much he enjoyed Nizar’s reaction to them.  He enjoyed the way they drove Nizar out of his mind.  The West had some of the most phrases, phrases they would slip into every day, adult conversation.    “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”  “A stitch in time saves nine.” And this drivel occurred regularly in their meetings with Western politicians and journalists.  

What sort of drugs were these people on to make them think such childish rhymes belonged in a man’s vernacular?               

“You just don’t understand their culture, Nizar,” Fahd often said.  “These little quirks are what make the West so charming.”Nizar thought he would be ill the first time he said it.  Charming?  They weren’t charming.  Agitating was too polite for the agony and idiocy these people forced on him.  They were mad.  Insane.  All of them..                

Not that Fahd minded.  He found them, as he said, _charming_.   With the exception of their asthetics, which were merely, and often said with a strained half-smile, quaint. 

On that they at least agreed, thankfully.  Western style, especially interior style, was at best an eyesore from which escape was almost impossible.  Rooms were often either was such a barrage of stomach wrenching color that it looked like several parrots had spontaneously combusted, or else it was so monochromatic Nizar swore he stumbled into a silent movie.  The best by far was when they put the two concepts in the same building.  Walking from the dining room to the living room suddenly became an exercise in bodily control.  One that so far Nizar had won.               

At least the West knew how to frame a view.               

Their penthouse had cost them a small fortune, even for the son of a king.  The uppermost rooms of one of the more dignified and elegant apartment complexes would be barely worth the expense of their rent if not for the breathtaking view.  The fourth wall of the living room was made almost entirely of glass.  It opened out onto a balcony that would be very pleasant outside of winter.  More importantly, however, the windows opened out onto the impressive skyline.  The nightlights gave the city, especially at this hour, an almost watery look, like a reflection of the night sky.  The city was still onyx, but just at the seam of the horizon, he could see the pale strip of pearl that signaled dawn. 

It was beautiful, and Nizar would be happy to stand there for a moment and enjoy it before the sunlight turned the city into a mess of concrete and steel.  Unfortunately there were things to attend to.  Like the corpse.                

Nizar managed to bite back a sneer when Fahd carried the corpse over to one of the leather couches that made up most of the room’s furniture.  He settled the corpse’s head first onto the cushion before easing down the rest of him.  He was thankfully very careful when it came to the shoes, shoving them off before the mud got onto the leather. 

Of course now it was on the floor but Nizar wasn’t as fond of the carpet.                                

“Seeing as my lord—excuse me, _you_ —aren’t going to sleep, shall I begin with today’s day’s agenda,” Nizar asked.                

Fahd didn’t so much as glance back at him as he spoke.  “Please do.”               

“Very well.”  Balancing the folder in one hand, Nizar flipped to the first page and scanned the itinerary, again.  “Your schedule is very full—”               

“When isn’t it?”              

“—You have a meeting with the defense council at seven.  We will have to keep questions to a minimum because there is a press conference at eight-thirty back in the city.”               

“And we don’t need you trying to talk us out of a traffic ticket again,” Fahd said, stroking the corpse’s hair back.  Nizar frowned.  He would have gotten them out of that ticket if Fahd hadn’t started chuckling.              

“The media is concerned about the continuing rumors surrounding your affiliations.”               

 “Of course they are.  I will just have to assuage their fears,” he said.  Fahd turned and smiled.  It was soft and disturbingly disarming: his media smile, which had about an 87% rate of getting him out of any trouble.  “How should I go about it?  Amused or offended?”               

“Whatever you decide will be effective as always,” Nizar answered with a shrug.  Frowning, Fahd turned away and gestured his continuation.  “After the press, you have a meeting with the Peacecraft--”               

“Again?  Doesn’t that woman have anyone else to bother?”               

“Her organization is one of the most prominent and influential, and as such, it’s—”               

“It’s highly important to maintain a positive relationship.  I know, you’ve told me.”  Fahd sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes.  “Which old fool do I have to suffer today?”  Nizar searched through his added notations.  He managed to keep the smirk out of his voice.               

“A Quatre Raberba Winner.” 

Nizar wasn’t exactly surprised when Fahd leapt up and snatched the paper from his hands.  His eyes ran rapidly over the name written in Nizar’s poor handwriting several times, lips pursed.  There could be no mistaking it; the likelihood of having to Winners, with the same name, similar appearances, and working in the same organization, was beyond miniscule.                                

“Sandrock,” he muttered.  “He must be nineteen now.”                

“Close enough,” he said.  Fahd frowned.  He had been involved in politics for only a few years before the war between Earth and the colonies broke out; their country chosen neutrality, although Nizar and a handful of others hacked every system on ever side, just to be careful.  Fahd, stuck as he was in the country and intricate tangles of its politics, had becomes mildly obsessed with the war, particularly the Gundams.  Nizar suspected it was out of envy—even then Fahd’s father kept him on a tight leash—but he was not stupid enough to ask.                

“Well,” he said, handing the paper back to Nizar with as close to his usual calm as he could manage.  “This will be interesting, then.”                

“Very.”               

“What else is there,” he asked, returning to the couch.                

Conference calls, press conferences, and appointments.  Dinner dates and lunches.  Honestly, Fahd wasn’t the only one who missed the “old days” when Nizar was a tutor.  The political world was boring.  They had mastered the rules of the games far too quickly.  Every day after the first few years had become something of a grind.  At least there would be several visits to bases this week.  That was always enjoyable: seeing their labors so brilliantly progressing.  Their war was going to be more than successful at the rate they were going.               

“Oh,” Nizar said as he neared the end of the page. “You have a conference call this afternoon with his majesty’s physicians.”               

The corpse cried out softly as Fahd’s fingers twisted its hair.  Nizar frowned when it brought a hand up to scratch weakly at Fahd’s arm, proving it was, unfortunately, not actually dead.  The light scratches got Fahd’s attention.  He hastily stroked the thing’s hair down before glaring over his shoulder.                

“And?  What do they want now?”                

“His majesty has taken a turn for the worse.  This time he suffered a stroke.  They’ve stabilized him but are not hopeful.  They suspect he won’t make it much longer than the new year, and implore you to return immediately.”               

If Nizar didn’t see the look every time, the joy on Fahd’s face would have disturbing.  As it was, it simply meant that Nizar would have to come up with another viable excuse to forgive Fahd’s continued absence from the comatose king’s deathbed.               

“Is that all,” he asked lightly, stroking down the thing’s hair.  “Well, we’ll certainly try but our schedule is so busy.  I’m afraid I might not be able to see the man before he passes.”               

“Which the doctors will understand.  You are trying to uphold his ideals, after all.”               

“Oh yes.   The country’s honor.  I’ll make the old bastard proud,” he sneered.               

The king really shouldn’t have gone to such lengths to ensure Fahd’s success.  If he hadn’t, he would probably still be conscious now.               

Nizar snapped the folder closed.  “That is all for today’s schedule.”               

“Wonderful.  And there’s still,” Fahd glanced at the digital clock sitting on the liquor cabinet.  “Half an hour before I need to get ready.  Plenty of time to get things settled.”  

“Things” obviously being the thing currently nuzzling the hand running fingers across its cheek.               

Nizar tossed the folder onto the coffee table.  This had gone on long enough.  He realized he wasn’t the most patient man but thought he had always been rather good about Fahd’s physical needs.  The nightly escapades, for the most part, he ignored other than to remind him—and himself—how easily Fahd could get caught by the media, or something even more unpleasant.  Nizar understood: Fahd was a twenty-eight year old with a libido to match.  Of _course_ there would be urges and needs.  Nizar didn’t even comment on his preferences.  He was, on the whole, rather open and fair about Fahd’s sexual appetite.               

But damn it, he never brought one back before.  Aside from the rudeness and blatant abuse of Nizar’s complacency, it was stupidity at its absolute worst.  Who knew where this drunk prostitute had come from?  Who knew who he could be working for?  _Did he even listen when I explained the nooks and crannies whores are privy to?_                

“Fahd, I’d like the opportunity to speak plainly—”               

“We’ve had this conversation already.”               

“—And I would like amnesty for it.”  That drew his attention.  Fahd eyed him curiously for a moment, hand wound in the thing’s hair.               

“Do you need it,” he asked.  Nizar nodded curtly.  A lesser man would lose his life for what he planned to say—a godsend compared to the mutilations greater and equal men would suffer.  “Fine, amnesty granted.  I admit now I’m curious.  What’s on your mind?”               

“Are you insane or stupid,” Nizar demanded, ignoring how Fahd’s eyes widened slightly and his head tilted.  “Did you hit your head tonight and completely forget about the kind of danger this could put, put us, in?”              

“What in the world are you talking about?”               

“That!”  Fahd followed Nizar’s hard point.  The thing shifted under his hand               

“What about him?”               

If he didn’t have the power to execute him at a whim, Nizar would have wrung his neck.  He reminded himself how much he enjoyed living to keep him from vaulting the coffee table.                

“Forgetting for the moment the innumerable diseases it’s probably carrying, and passing on to you,” he sneered.  Fahd returned the look with an eye roll.  “Do you have any idea the position prostitutes have in this society?”               

“Oh, not this again.”               

“Yes this again.  They have this lovely little situation where no one wants to acknowledge their existence, and yet they are everywhere.  They occupy all the nooks and crannies no one likes to think about, and thusly are presented with the best opportunities for possessing and passing valuable information.”               

“We’ve had this lecture before,” he muttered, chin in his hand.                

“These whores are nearly on the payrolls of not only the media but the government.  Everyone from high school reporters to the FBI knows that to get the real dirt on someone, especially celebrities and _politicians_ , you talk to the whores.”               

“Are you finished?”               

“No,” he snapped, fisted clenched.  “You’ve introduced a dangerous liability to our plans, your plans.  Forget the fact that whoring is an excellent way to give yourself the absolutely wrong image.  You brought it _here_.  Unless you’re going to kill him and burn the remains, there is nothing to stop him from going to the police.”              

“He’s not going to go to the police.”               

“You put too much faith in the scum of the earth.”               

“He is not going to tell anyone anything.”              

Nizar snorted.  “Either he’s mute or you are planning a murder, in which case I hope this is someone no one is going to miss.”             

“I am not going to murder him, and he isn’t mute.”  Fahd smiled at the unconscious body.  “Although, he likes to pretend to be.”              

“The whore’s going to go to the media for a quick buck,” he insisted.  Fahd rolled his eyes.               

“Enough with the ‘whore’ business.  He isn’t a prostitute.”               

Nizar hoped Fahd hadn’t expected that to make him feel better.  It _wasn’t_ a prostitute?  Then what, he picked up some random drunk at a bar?  Nizar looked the unconscious body.  The unconscious boy.  He couldn’t be much older than eighteen.  With his luck, he was probably a year or two less.  Images of assault accusations streaming out of horrified, homophobic upper-class parents leapt to his mind.                

Fahd frowned at him.  “I don’t know what you’re imagining but stop it.”               

“You’ve dug yourself a fine fucking grave, Fahd.”               

He rolled his eyes.  “You have an overactive imagination.”               

“And you don’t have one,” he yelled.  The drunk boy groaned.  Fahd actually jumped.  “You lack the capacity to imagine what could happen to you.  You just can’t see past this second and realize that everything you do has consequences you don’t want.  Everyone is watching you.  Everyone is waiting for you to fuck up, for the opportunity to expose you, ridicule you, kill you.  You don’t understand that every time you leave this penthouse, every time you wake up, every time you piss, there is probably a gun somewhere trained on your head.  People want to kill you, Fahd, and incriminate you while they’re at it.  And you’re bringing home underage prostitutes!”               

By now, his knees were complaining.  The cold was bad for them, and tensing up as he had made the constant dull ache even worse.  Not caring how it made him look, Nizar sank into the nearest armchair beside him.  He ran his hand over his face.  The scolding was very therapeutic, like a heavy weight had finally slipped on his chest.  Unfortunately, now he needed a drink.  Badly.  

Fahd rose suddenly.  Nizar watched him through his fingers as Fahd walked to the liquor cabinet.  He poured a large glass of scotch and brought it over to Nizar.  He held it just over his head, a small smile playing on his lips.               

“Someone’s been holding _that_ in for a while,” he said.  Nizar stared at him before sighing and taking the glass.              

“You have no idea,” he said.  The alcohol was exquisite.               

“Now, while I was aware of your feelings about my antics,” Fahd said, seating himself on the arm of the chair.  He didn’t look the least bit repentant, what with the smug smile and his head resting so casually on his fist.  _Everything’s a game to him._   “I wasn’t aware of the stress I was putting you through.  I apologize, but, in my own defense, I am actually aware of how many people are out to get me, and I am actually rather particular about my outings.  But your concern is really very touching, and it pains me to know that I’ve been causing you such stress.”               

Nizar snorted, not believing a word of it but too exhausted to call him on it.  He took another swig, emptying the glass which Fahd promptly refilled.               

“I just wish you would leave the finding of your partners to me.  Then I could at least be sure they are clean and, if necessary,” he said, glaring at the couch.  “expendable.”               

“But then you take away all of my fun,” Fahd said.               

“I’m quite certain I can find you one just as enjoyable.”               

“No.  I’m sure that you could never find me anything quite like him,” he said, glancing at the couch.  Fahd watched the boy shift with some knowing smile.               

“You doubt my resources too much.”               

Fahd’s smile broadened.  “You trust them too much.”               

The sun had risen, turning the city a muted gray, when Nizar was finished his fourth drink.  By then, he had leaned back some in the chair, enjoying the warmth of the alcohol and quiet presence of Fahd sitting quietly, patiently at his side.  Fahd had stopped talking a while ago, instead focusing on the file he had picked up from the table after pouring Nizar’s third drink.  He balanced it carefully on his crossed knees as he read, pausing only to refill Nizar’s glass. Fahd, still balancing himself on the arm, cradled the folder in his hand and read with a surprising intensity.  Nizar finished the fourth and left the glass on the arm of the chair.  He watched the slow spread of light until Fahd suddenly snapped the file shut.               

“Time to start the day, I think,” Fahd announced.                

Nizar glanced over at the clock and nodded.  If they wanted to be on time today, they had better get started soon.  Nizar put the glass on the coffee table and started to push himself from the chair.  His knee ached.               

“No, no, don’t get up,” Fahd said, guiding him back down to the chair.  Nizar frowned at the hand on his shoulder before glaring at Fahd. “Relax.”               

Relax?  “What are you doing, Fahd?”                

“Making amends.  I’ve caused you another sleepless night and aggravated your arthritis.”               

“So?”               

“So, I’m going to make today much easier for you.  I’ll be escorting myself to my appointments.”               

Nizar was suddenly sure he was drunk.  “You’re going to what?”               

Fahd rose, tucking the folder under his arm.  “Escort myself.  Consider today a holiday.  You hate politics and these talks and meetings almost as much as I do, and I’ve been inconsiderate.  You deserve this.  I’ll simply have to survive without you—a proper punishment for my mistreatment of your trust.”               

Nizar had to be drunk.  Stupidly drunk.  He followed Fahd’s movements carefully.  The boy was up to something.  Fahd never went alone.  Nizar was always at his side.  _Always_.  It was disastrous otherwise, because for all his bravado, Fahd had insecurities and quirks that only advisor and former tutor could understand and control.  The last time Nizar hadn’t been there, there had been several incidents that could have ruin several important things.  Thankfully, everyone understood that Fahd was a little upset about his old tutor going through intensive surgery.  Sort of. 

And he wanted to go alone?  Today? 

“I don’t think—” he started.  Fahd cut him off.              

“No, I insist.  I realize now how childish I’ve been, how stupid and inconsiderate, how dangerously close I’ve come to ruining everything.   You’re right, Nizar: I have no capacity to see ahead.  If I did, I would realize that someday you will not be here.  We are mortal; you’ll have to die eventually, and somehow I must learn to carry on without you.  And since I could never dream of replacing you once you’ve passed, I have to learn how to do your job when you can no longer do it yourself.”  He smiled, holding the folder before him.  “Today is the day I begin to see.  Today is the day I start looking ahead and taking responsibility for my actions.  Whatever happens to today, mistake or no, is my doing.”               

Nizar sank back into the chair, unable to stop himself from being at least a little awed by this sudden growth in maturity.   Fahd busied himself with prep work, asking where the paperwork was and requesting specific directions.  And he didn’t look at the couch once.  Nizar answered every question almost cheerfully, finally pushing himself out of the chair to see Fahd off at the door. 

It was progress.  Immense progress, and in just the short span of an hour.  Less even.  And once Fahd had left, he could toss the drunk out on the street before it regained consciousness.  Fahd might even ask him to, fueled by the newfound maturity.                

“Oh, Nizar,” Fahd said, stopping by the door to pull on his coat.  “There is one thing I would like you to do today.  I know I really shouldn’t ask any more favors of you, and I understand if you refuse, but I would appreciate it.”               

Nizar cracked his knuckles discreetly but joyously.  “Of course.  I would be happy to assist.”              

“Wonderful,” he said with a smile.  “If you could just look after him for the day.  He drank quite a bit, cracked his head on the car too, so he should sleep for a while.  But if he gets anxious or difficult, just leave him in my bedroom and I’ll deal with him later.  I should be no later than five.  That’s the usual time we finish, isn’t it?  Thank you, Nizar.  I really _do_ appreciate it.”              

Fahd swept the keys and folders into his arms and was out the door long before Nizar realized how well he had been tricked.  When it finally sank in, when Fahd was surely in the elevator, Nizar kicked the wall.  He stopped only when his foot hurt too much and the crack was just that side of difficult to fix.               

“Damn him!”               

Nizar stomped back to the living room.  He grabbed the bottle of scotch off the cabinet.  The alcohol burned down his throat.  When he slammed the bottle back onto the cabinet, the boy on the couch whined softly.  Nizar sneered, watching it curl on the couch.                

It would be so easy just to walk over, hold a cushion over his face, and smother him.  Or open the glass doors to the balcony and cast him over the side.  There were plenty of knives in the kitchen.  Too many really, to miss one that would be soiled in blood when he stabbed him repeatedly in the chest.  And of course there was the revolver strapped to his side.  It would be so easy to kill him and cover it up.  

Or it would, if Nizar knew that Fahd wouldn’t make the cover-up impossible out of pure spite.                               

Bottle in hand, Nizar sat down and watched it sleep.  After tipping the bottle back again, Nizar would begrudgingly admit that there was something attractive about the boy.  His face was all angular lines and corners and yet it still maintained a softness to it.  His auburn hair curled delicately against his cheek bones and fluttered with each breath.  His lips were slender, too, for a boy’s, and such a gentle shade.  They were parted just slightly, just enough for a small glimpse of white enamel.  _What sort of eyes does he have?  They don’t look almond-shaped from here._

There were problems, of course, Nizar reminded himself with a hard shake of his head.  The boy was heavily bruised for one thing.  The blue and purple splotches marred cheek and neck, all the way down into his sweater.  The color was faded, which made Nizar suspect they were at least several days old.  His lower lip were split too.  Healing nicely, but still split.  _Much too thin, as well.  Look at the cut of his jaw.  He probably hasn’t eaten properly in months.  Or he’s anorexic.  The males here are just as obsessive as the females over weight._  

And then there were his clothes.  They were filthy.  Nizar could see the mud on the boy’s jeans from here, and didn’t doubt there was more on his sweater.  The boy reeked of drink and, now that he was really being critical, cigarettes.  And something illegal too.  _Wonderful_.  A runaway or a drug addicted might have just been dumped into his lap.  _When will Fahd at least get some taste?_                

“A holiday,” he spat.  “I’d rather be in those stupid meetings.  Who knows what he’ll screw up today?”  Sighing, Nizar ran a hand through his hair.  The boy on the couch shifted.   .                

Well, if he was going to baby-sit, the boy would at least be clean.  There was no way he was letting it muddy up the furniture.  Leather was a bitch to clean.               

Nizar replaced the bottle and dug out his phone.  Leaning back against the wall, Nizar waited for the line to pick up.  He could easily walk to the front door and get them but this kept them on their toes.  Theoretically.  The phone rang six times before connecting.               

“Sir?”               

“Living room.”               

“Now?”

“Of course, now.  You have ten seconds.”               

He had to give them credit: when motivated, the two boys moved.  And what better motivation was there than an underlying threat?  Nizar could get away with so much as the prince’s advisor.  They were standing before him in attention in seven seconds, openly bitter.                

“Get those looks off your faces,” he said.  It took them a moment to correct themselves, brows pinching in mild, momentary confusion.  Nizar sneered.  They hadn’t been practicing.  Nizar insisted that Fahd’s personal guards had to be able to effective communicate in several languages, including English.  He made a point using their native tongue only rare when they were in the penthouse.               

The one on the right, Hamid, promising and scarred, recovered the quickest.  Nizar nodded to him curtly.  The other, Raif, would be reprimanded later.              

Nizar gestured to the couch.  “Bring him."               

The walk to the bathroom was only problematic because the boy them with his weight.  He looked scrawny but there was quite a bit of muscle in those long limbs of his.  Hamid and Raif shuffled with him for a moment before deciding to drape an arm over each of their shoulders and drag him.  Nothing was knocked over and the boy remained unconscious.                

Nizar opened the bathroom door, an annoyingly out-of-place one of sliding wood, and flicked on the lights.  The space was almost too large for the penthouse, but it was done tastefully in black, off-white, and steel.  The pair dropped their load to the white throw rug lying in front of the glass shower stall.               

“Strip him,” Nizar ordered before going to the shower and starting the water.  The water was lukewarm before he noticed the lack of movement.  He glared at them over his shoulder.  “Now.”  Hamid and Raif practically pounced on the boy.  Leaving the water, Nizar crossed to the marbled sink.              

He looked like hell: dark bags under his eyes and more wrinkles than he remembered.  The scar spanning the length of the right side of his face had finally faded after nearly twenty years.  Wrinkles spread out from it.  He passed a hand over his head.  Nizar used to have to shave his head every few weeks to control his weed-like hair.  Now, he could go for months.  When it did need cutting, the hair was white and gray.  And then there were the things he couldn’t see, like the arthritis.  Nizar was finally showing his age.  He still had his build, though, and his steady shot.  There weren’t many in their sixties who could boast that.                    

“Sir,” Hamid called.  Nizar closed his eyes. “Sir, you might want to look at this.”

The sneer he had been planning stalled on his face once Nizar turned around and faced the boy.  Nizar crossed to them and crouched by them, head tilted.  They had striped him to the waist before stopping.  The two of them had probably never a corset before, so they ignored the warning it game.  Nizar lifted the item from the floor.  It barely gave an inch when he pulled it.  He dropped it onto the shirt.  With a frown, he looked from the chest to the face and back again, noticing the light dusting of bruises along the ribs and the beginnings of gooseflesh.                

Straddling the legs, Nizar undid the jeans with astoundingly steady hands.  He yanked them down to the knees, and paused.  After hearing his pulse for a minute, Nizar spread the thighs and rested his hand lightly between them.               

“Finish stripping him,” he ordered, rising.  “And get him in the shower.”               

The probing had roused him—her—it?—enough to start struggling, but Nizar didn’t pay attention.  As long as Hamid continued to hold down his—her—its—hands, they’d be fine.  Nizar focused on the mirror as he washed his hands, turning over this new development in his mind.  It had an Adam’s apple, and a penis; that made it a boy.  It had breasts, and a vagina; that made it a girl.  What the hell kind of person had them both?               

Transgender was almost immediately eliminated. It appeared to have both sets of genitalia, coexisting and assumingly functioning together, but they looked different.  Smaller than they should’ve been on a boy—girl—person of that age.  Nizar had had both sons and daughters, thanks to Lamis, and remembered the development of his children’s’ bodies fairly well.  It looked almost prepubescent.  

Nizar glanced over his shoulder.  Now it was awake and kicking as best as the hangover would let it.  The breasts wiggled and bounced, despite their small size, with the thrashing, and it flashed Nizar with every kick.  Water had soaked into the bottom of his coat and shirt before Nizar realized how full the sink was.  He yanked off the water with a curse. 

Hamid and Raif were wrestling it into the shower by the time Nizar knelt down by the discarded clothes.  He had the wallet and keys in hand when it hit the water.  The yelp was deep enough that Nizar assumed masculine pronouns would remain appropriate.  He watched the continued struggling for a moment.  Hamid, despite the bloody nose, split lip, and black eye, trapped the thrashing body through arm pins and leg holds, snarling over the hisses and cries as Raif cleaned him.  Ignoring the rise in profanity, Nizar brought the wallet over to the sink counter and started emptying it.               

A wallet could say a lot about a person.  Dollar bills reflected neatness, the presence of junk magpie habits.  And of course, the particulars of the items spoke volumes about tastes and hobbies.  So when he found nothing but a photo-less ID, forty-seven dollars, and a single, expired credit card, Nizar was immediately suspicious.  Contents like that meant either he had the most boring boy in history, or someone with a lot to hide.  The names on the ID and credit card didn’t match.  _Great, the latter._

Eventually the pair finished and tossed the boy roughly onto the rug.  He barely managed to get his feet under him before Hamid pounced on him, dragging a towel over his head while Raif dried the rest of him.  They glanced at Nizar for further orders through their struggles.               

“Take him to the bedroom.  I’ll be there shortly,” he ordered.  They seemed almost surprised by the sound of their own language.  There was no way, however, that Nizar was going to use English.  Not now, not until he knew what he was dealing with.               

Nizar took his time gathering and folding the muddy clothes.  He planned on having them washed, thoroughly, but the chore gave him time to think.  What exactly did Fahd bring home?  It _could_ be just a thief, who was on the wrong side of lucky, picking up an expired credit card.  But Nizar doubted he was that fortunate.                

The boy exuded danger.  Nizar had expected drunken punches, easily blocked and dodged, or hysterics from the hangover and confusion.  There had been neither.  Though sluggish, every move the boy had made had been calculated and as precise as inebriation had allowed.  And although Nizar had plenty of complaints about their personalities and mental capacities, there were very few he could make about their physique—and even less about their prowess.  Hamid and Raif had earned top marks in hand-to-hand and weapon combat.  Hamid had seventeen assassinations, twelve of which had been completed without a sniper rifle, knife, or other standard weapon.               

And the boy had _bloodied_ him.  If he fought that well drunk, Nizar could only imagine the havoc he’d inflict sober.                

“What the hell did you bring back?” 

Nizar continued thinking as he dumped the soiled clothing into the small laundry room and poured the drunk a glass of water in the kitchen.  He was probably dehydrated, given the amount of vomit, remains and stink, that had been on those clothes.  Nizar carried it back towards the room, passing Hamid and Raif in the hall.  He stopped them for a moment to examine the damage.  Nizar sent them on their way  with permission to use the first aid kit in the hall cabinet.  

Nizar stopped outside of the bedroom.  He heard frantic shuffling inside.  Nizar imagined he was searching the room, frustrated by the hangover and the lack of windows, doors, or obvious ventilation system.  Frowning, Nizar left him to his pacing as he returned to the kitchen.  Food, after all, was the best way to sooth a mongrel.  _Crackers should do, and not upset his stomach again._                

“So,” he began slowly when he returned to the bedroom with a tray and opened the door. “Shall I call you ‘Aubrey’ or ‘Mikhail,’ or is there an ID that I missed?”               

While Nizar hadn’t expected him to be sitting on the bedspread, complacent with fear, he also hadn’t expected a heel to explode out of his peripheral vision.  It connected to his temple like a sledge hammer.  Dropping to the carpet, Nizar saw through red-and-black lined vision the quick and staggering movements of naked legs.  There was very little that would fit the bastard; he would have to stop and search for his own clothes or else run out naked.  Nizar counted on not only his assumption of the boy’s preference, but also the assumption that Nizar was no longer a threat.              

Which wasn’t the case.               

Cursing, Nizar pulled himself up using the dresser, ignoring the vertigo.   The naked footfalls were almost at the  end of the hallway by the time Nizar calculated, and dismissed, two equations factoring in distance traveled, time took to chase or phone, and the proximity of anything the bastard could use as an effective weapon.  Nizar searched the dresser quickly.  The bastard was nearing the turn.  If Nizar didn’t stop him now, there would be hell. 

The round, glass paperweight was heavy but fit perfectly in his palm.  Fahd never used the ugly thing anyway.  He wouldn’t miss it.                  

The boy’s head snapped back with a sharp cry.  Nizar’s lips curled back into a sneer.  The glass had slammed into the junction of the bastard’s head and neck.  His legs tangled as his body shut down from the sudden impact and shock.  The boy collapsed at the end of the hall.  

Sixty-three, and his aim was still damn-near perfect.              

Maybe it was the fall, or the blow, but Nizar’s arthritis now felt even worse.  He staggered towards the body, a hand pressed against the wall for balance.  When he reached the bastard, he had successfully focused every ounce of discomfort and anger on him.  Everything—absolutely everything—was this abomination’s fault and the look of pain frozen on its face was immensely satisfying.   It didn’t even stir when Nizar prodded the skull with his foot.  He crouched with difficulty and measured breaths and pulse, peeled open on the eyes to watch the iris and pupil roll backwards.  _Good.  Not faking it._                

Nizar picked up the paperweight and turned it over in his hands.  Long, deep cracks splintered across the surface.  It would be out for quite a while.                

Nizar waited, seated against the wall, for the vertigo to lessen before getting up and moving the body.  There was going to be a new bruise to add to its collection by the time it woke up.  The limp body was an uncomfortable weight on his shoulder but he managed to lug it back to the bedroom.  He had no problem finding Fahd’s horde of chains in the second dresser drawer and the storage bin in the closet.                

“Well, I suppose there are some uses for his interests,” he muttered while looping the chain around the bedpost and fastening cuffed wrists together.  He restrained the ankles in a similar manner before getting off the mattress.  The stretching had flattened out the small breasts and pressed its ribs against bruised flesh.  Nizar had crossed the ankles before binding them, so only the flaccid penis was visible.  Nizar frowned.  If one or two pieces could be wiped away, it would almost look normal.  As it was, the hodgepodge grew more defined with the position.               

“He’s right.  Even my resources couldn’t come up with this.”               

Nizar spent the rest of the day in the living room, after double checking the locks and shutting the bedroom door.  He tried to enjoy his “holiday:” finish long overdue paperwork, write letters to the few friends he had managed to keep after the army, catch up on his reading.  But the vertigo had ended up morphing into a numbing headache before he was finished everything he wanted.  At four, he found himself stretched out on the couch, wincing as the headache pounded through his left temple and eye.  The aspirin wasn’t kicking in either.  Cursing, Nizar found consolation in the condensation and cold radiating from the bottle of wine he’d pull from the freezer.               

“Isn’t steak the classic remedy for a black eye,” Fahd asked from the doorway.             

Nizar turned his head to glare at him, shivering at the cold condensation that dripped down his cheek.  Fahd, jacket over one arm and folders in the other, tilted his head.               

“This is your doing.”              

“Mine?  I wasn’t even home,” he said.  Tossing folders and jacket on a chair, he sat on the coffee table across from him.  He smirked as he examined the bruise Nizar could feel forming.  “That’s quite a shiner.  How did you manage that?”               

“Your fucking mutt,” he sneered.  Fahd frowned.                

“You fought?”               

“You could say that.”              

“I hope you didn’t hurt him, Nizar.”               

“Your concern is touching.  I didn’t hurt your precious abomination.  I got it clean, dropped it off in your bedroom, went to get it something to eat and drink—”               

“All the necessities for a prisoner.”               

“—and had my kindness rewarded with a heel to the head,” he continued bitterly.              

Fahd nodded.  “You probably upset him.  He’s rather self-conscious.”               

“I can see why.”               

“Then what?  I assume you didn’t let him get away with such rudeness.”              

Nizar removed the bottle.  Smirking, he wiped the condensation off and pried out the cork.  “I do hope you weren’t attached to that paperweight,” he said after a sip.               

“Is it broken?”               

“Severely.”              

“He is still alive, isn’t he?”               

“He was when I checked on him last.”               

“When was that?”             

Nizar took a second sip before looking at the clock.  “This morning.”  

Fahd frowned and rose with a huff.  Nizar smirked.   He was about to return the bottle to his head when one of the folders Fahd had returned with landed in his lap.  Nizar set the bottle on the table to push the papers back into the folder and tap it against his thighs.  Habit, and all.  

“What’s this,” he asked.               

“Consider it something of an owner’s manual, complete with pedigree.”              

“You’re not seriously considering keeping him,” he asked.  Fahd smiled and leaned against the door frame.  He gave a slow shrug.                

“Well I obviously can’t, seeing as you’re clearly not babysitter material.  And we can’t leave him alone.  Who knows the trouble he’d cause?  There’s also the little fact that I would feel horrible for denying him not only his high profile career but also the comfort of his friends.”  Sighing, he shook his head.  “No, he won’t be staying with us, but I do believe he’ll be visiting us often from here on out.”              

“And what makes you think so?”  .             

Fahd’s smile curled into a leer.  “A hunch.  Have a look.  I thought it would be nice to give you a chance to look into his particulars.  Hopefuly, we can avoid anymore situations like _this_ in the future.”              

Nizar growled when Fahd left, chuckling.  Taking a long drink, Nizar sat back and examined the folder.  It was surprisingly thick.  What kind of baggage was it carrying?             

Thankfully, Nizar had swallowed his mouthful of wine before opening the folder.  It started innocently enough: a profile page complete with a three-by-four of the boy, pre-beating.  The several N/As didn’t really bother him; a lot of people didn’t reveal birth dates or places, or even know them.  Nizar didn’t start to worry until he connected the name—Trowa Barton, which was actually listed at the top of “aliases,” while another N/A glared from beside “name”—with the list of “occupations” and “pastimes.”               

Apparently, fading into anonymity hadn’t been appealing to 003.  He joined the Preventors several months ago, after a very brief and obviously unsatisfying return to the circus.  He had been on desk operative until recently, when he had attempted his first operation: an undercover job at a club Nizar was very familiar with.  He had been discovered.  The mission was deemed a failure.  And 003 returned to desk duty.  

 _Fahd kidnapped not only a former pilot—not only a Preventor—but that one?_

Groaning, Nizar tossed the folder on the table.  He snatched the bottle from the table and drank.  With his head back against the couch and the now half-empty bottle resting over his throbbing eye, he glared into the ceiling.               

“I hate you.”

 

 *-----*-----*               

Trowa should have trusted his instincts.  He should have turned his bike around and driven off.  Of course, by the time he had gotten home, he was too cold, tired, and irritated to pay attention to instinct.  The SUV nearly running him off the road had been the last straw.  So Trowa just ignored that not only was the porch light out but every other light (something Heero’s militant mind refused to allow) was as well.  Trowa didn’t care.  He wanted to crawl into bed.  So while he was pushing the bike up to the house and covering it with the tarp, Trowa did his best to convince himself nothing was wrong.               

 _That light’s been flickering for days._ He shoved down the kickstand. _It was bound to burn out, or the wiring finally gone._ Trowa yanked the tarp over the handlebars and back wheel and pulled and straightened it down the sides _.  Heero’s probably going to look into it tomorrow after work._ Stepping back, he pulled his helmet off and glanced at the dark house.  _And that was a pretty nasty storm.  Maybe the transformer blew again?  It’s still early, maybe they went out with Wufei and Zechs.  Dinner or something._                

Perfectly believable, if he ignored the cars in the driveway.                

While he was searching for his keys, Trowa finally figured out where the odd sense of déjà vu, and the equally disturbing notion that he was being watched, came from: he was dreaming.  

On the one hand, this was good.  It meant the Arab hadn’t killed him—yet.  Unfortunately, it also meant that Trowa (the one not cursing under his breath because he still couldn’t find his keys) was unconscious and vulnerable.  The horrors that slithered through his mind passed from his mild consciously to the dream; the Trowa on the stoop shivered and looked around with a brief look of alarm.               

 _Never mind._   That look had actually happened.                                  

“There it is,” he muttered.  He felt carefully for the lock, slipped the key in, and hesitated.  _Trowa, look at me_ , Catherine murmured suddenly in his ear _._ Groaning, he set his head on the wood.  Not again.  He just wanted to go to bed, damn it.  Their parting conversation had demanded enough of his attention earlier, when it had almost forced him to slow down to the posted speed limit.  Which, of course, led to the SUV trying to pass him and hitting that patch of black ice.  Wasn’t the near death experience torture enough?

 _Apparently not._

_“I know this has been a…distressing week for you.”_ Distressing?  There was an understatement if he had ever heard one.  He had snorted, which she had ignored.  She had taken one of his hands from the vice grip he had on his bike. “ _But I want you to promise me something, and really promise me.  This isn’t an ‘I’ll-be-careful’ kind of promise, either.  It’s the ‘I-won’t-attempt-suicide-in-front-of-you-again’ kind.”_

Considering how infrequently they referred to that, it had caught his attention.  Trowa had known exactly what she wanted, but he still listened.              

“ _Promise me you will talk to them.  Don’t.  I know.  It is the last thing you want to hear, and the absolutely last thing you actually want to do, but I want you to promise me that you will talk to them.  It doesn’t have to be today, tomorrow, or even next week, but please.  Sometime soon.  Not just for your sake but for theirs too.  Talk to them.”_

Even now, he felt her fingers sliding gently across his bruised cheek.  “ _You all went through so much, together.  You depended on them then.  Can’t you depend on them now?”_

That was then.  That was war: blood and violence, explosions and bullets.  Death.  It was different.  Trowa depended on them then because they had been the same; they had been warriors.  They experienced the same events, just under different circumstances.  They fought, they fled.  They won, they lost.  They bled, they killed.  They had been predictable.   They all had styles, preferences, and habits that Trowa had meticulously catalogued out of both habit and necessity.  It was easier to stay alive if he could know, with reasonable certainty, exactly what they would do in every situation.                

They weren’t so predictable now.              

He didn’t say any of that to her, of course.  Trowa knew better than to think that “predictability” would be evenly remotely acceptable for Catherine.  “An excuse” was even too much to hope for.  Trowa had swallowed his tongue, had swallowed the swears he wanted to shout, and returned her tight hug.  He had muttered something sounded like “I promise.?               

The scary thing was that he meant it.              

Just like on the ride, Trowa pushed everything—even sleep—from his mind as the thought crept up.  He sat down on the stoop.  He _meant_ it?  How could Trowa honestly mean it?  All the secrecy, all the hours and arguments, all his vehement protests—an entire lifetime of secrecy and protection, and now he was actually considering discussing _this?_ With _them_?  Had he lost his mind?               

No.  Trowa was just finally coming to understand something he had been forcing himself to ignore.  This—the house, the job, most importantly them—was tittering on the edge of loss, and none of it were things Trowa could afford to lose.   It wasn’t because he couldn’t pick up and start again.  It wasn’t even because he was exhausted, in so many ways, and wouldn’t make it down the driveway.  Trowa was comfortable.  He was satisfied.  He was _happy_ here, when he really sat down and thought about it.  Life was calm and stable, mostly, and he was surrounded by kindred spirits.  People who understood and accepted him despite his faults.                               

Of course, that was before everything fell apart.  Now the tension was so thick, it practically choked them.  That was the problem with secrecy though, wasn’t it?  The awkward aftershock, which had been dragging on for over a week now, and that he had probably just made much, much worse.  

Trowa rubbed his temples.  This weekend was not going to do him any favors.                

Trowa wasn’t going to bother to think he wasn’t damaging his only chances of staying.  He wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow, or tonight, they confronted him.  It simply wasn’t working out.  He was making things too difficult.  They couldn’t live with a liar.  Any number of reasons.  A vice tightened around his chest.  That was a conversation he didn’t want to have.  It was a conversation he would do just about anything to prevent. 

 _Even take the initiative_?  If it meant Trowa would be allowed to stay, absolutely.  And there was something redeeming about honesty.  At least, that’s what everyone said.  And Trowa could do it.  He had done a lot of unpleasant things in life.  He could easily make himself endure a serious cross-examination about his abnormality, couldn’t he?  It would only be a couple of painfully uncomfortable hours of exposure that could so easily backfire or go horribly wrong in any number of ways.  

“Maybe I should shoot myself,” he muttered into his palm before getting up.              

The house was pleasantly warm.  Not that Trowa really appreciated it.  He was too confused by the amount of candles.  They were everywhere, flickering from paper towel doilies and casting cheerful red glows across the walls and furniture.   Between Duo and Quatre, Trowa knew that they had a lot, but not this many.  Tilting his head, he peered into the kitchen towards the microwave.  He frowned at the blank display and then looked at the nearest candle.  It was a messy lump of wax.  They must have been burning for a while.              

 _God damned transformer._               

Trowa paused only a few feet from his bedroom.  He peered up the candle-dappled stairwell.  There was a brighter, less shifting glow of light coming from the right side of the second-floor hall.  Heero and Duo’s side.  The left, where Quatre’s bedroom, was dark and still.   And silent.  Trowa’s brow furrowed as he recognized the muffled noises that had drawn his attention to the stairs in the first place: voices.                

So they were home and upstairs.  Trowa glowered at his foot, which had inched itself towards the bottom step.  He yanked it back.  Unfortunately, it wouldn’t turn back towards the bedroom door.  He sighed.  Gripping the molding, he looked up the stairs and listened.  He was too far away to make anything out, until he heard Quatre’s laughter.  A faint smile spread across his lips as Duo bit out a very audible curse.  It widened when he heard the deeper rumble of Heero.   Trowa listened to the soothing tones for several minutes, head dipping finally to thunk softly against the wall.  Was he really so desperate?  Tomorrow would be better, wouldn’t it?  They would all be well rested and—              

Trowa knew himself better than that.  If he didn’t do it now, he never would.  Well, he supposed he should consider himself lucky they were awake.  There was no way he would be able to make himself wake them up for this.               

The voices became clearer with every step he took up the stairs and down the hall.  Fingers gliding along silently, he listened, sidestepping the worn patches hidden beneath the carpet effortlessly; espionage, after all, had been his specialty.  Outside the door, he paused.  The light here was sharper.  Artificial.  Probably from one of the camping lanterns they kept in the basement.  The voices, too, were sharper.  Trowa’s curiosity spiked.  With his back against the wall, he leaned into the partially opened doorway, protected by its inward swing, and listened.             

“—simply isn’t fucking fair,” Duo complained.  Part of the bed was visible, as was one of Duo’s feet, tapping itself against the bedspread.  Quatre’s hand flickered in and away in a pacifying gesture.               

“I’m sure it was just an accident, Duo.”               

“Bull.”               

“Duo—”             

“You’ve been going behind my back, haven’t you Quatre?”  Trowa’s eyes narrowed.                      

“But I haven’t.”              

“Have so."               

“Duo,” Heero cut across.  Trowa shrank back as his back slid into view.  Trowa noticed the lack of tension in his back and shoulders almost immediately.  There was a crook in his usually straight posture: relaxed, almost playful.  Trowa frowned.  His eyes slid down to the relax hold Heero had on the neck of a bottle.  It sloshed noisily when Heero tipped it to fill Duo’s, then Quatre’s, glass.  “You can’t win every match.”              

Great.  They were drunk.             

While Trowa’s mind recalculated the risks that any level of inebriation added, Duo and Quatre had shifted on the bed to allow Heero.  Trowa shifted as well, welcoming the opportunity to see better.  Squatting, he watched as Heero, seated on the floor with his back to the mattress, and Quatre, cross-legged just above, clinked glasses over Quatre’s victory.  Whatever that was.  Duo, lounging on his side, took a sulky sip.  Their movements were a little sluggish and their personalities mildly off, but they weren’t wasted, if Trowa was any sort of judge.  That was probably good.              

Duo set his glass on the board sitting between him and Quatre.  It was mostly empty, the pieces scattered on the bedspread.  Except for the black piece closest to Duo, which was tipped over.  _That explains a lot._                

“I know I can’t win _every_ match, Heero, but he never beats me,” Duo argued with a grin.  Quatre scowled at him.               

“You never lose this gracelessly to me,” Heero said.              

“That’s because you’re sometimes a challenge.”              

A smile slipped across his lips.  “And Wufei?”              

“Yeah, I really want to beat a man who would love nothing better than to gut me like a fish if he loses.  I let Wufei win—”               

“—which he knows,” Quatre said over his glass.               

“He so does not know, Quatre.”  Quatre grinned and sipped his drink.  “He doesn’t, and that’s not the point anyway.  The point is that Quatre couldn’t beat me even if I let him win.”  Heero and Quatre rolled their eyes to each other.  “Which means that he’s been playing behind my back.”               

“Who am I going to play with considering we live together and you have possession of the only chess board,” Quatre asked.  Duo grinned.               

“I bet you and Tro sneak in here all the time to play,” he purred.  

The mention of his name, and the not-so-subtle innuendo attached to it, shocked them.  Duo was apparently oblivious; he took a long sip of his wine.  The room went quiet.  Heero finished a third of his drink and Quatre half of his before anyone moved.  Then Quatre, setting his glass on the board, leaned over and took Duo’s wrist.  He brought it close to his face and stared.                

“Another thirty minutes and it’ll be a full 24 hours,” he sighed.  24 hours of what?               

“Time flies when the electricity’s shot,” Duo said.                

“I still say I could fix that damn transformer myself,” Heero muttered.               

Duo reached over and stroked his hair.  “We know you could, love, but I really don’t think Une would appreciate having to pull rank on the local precinct, again.”             

“If they had come out when we first called, I wouldn’t have climbed the pole.  And I did fix it.”               

“Yes you did, and pissed off the electric company.”               

He snorted.  “Who steals electricity?”               

“Apparently you do.  Which is probably why they still haven’t come out yet.”               

“So now it’s my fault.”               

“It’s also the weekend, Duo,” Quatre reminded.               

“The power blew yesterday.  People work on Saturday.”               

“The power blew last night after we got home,” he reasoned.  “They don’t work that late.”               

“They’ve had all day.  We called them last night and this morning.”               

“But it’s Sunday.  Most businesses aren’t open on Sundays.”               

“Electric companies aren’t most businesses.  I think they’re being spiteful.  They took one look at the number and thought ‘it’s the crazy electric thief, let them suffer’.”               

“But the whole block runs on one transformer.”               

“They’re going to turn the neighborhood against us.  It’s a conspiracy.”               

“You’re ridiculous,” Heero sighed.               

“You never should have climbed the pole.”               

He growled.  “This is not my fault.”               

“You’re the one who pissed them off.”              

“They should have replaced that transformer.”              

“They might have if they hadn’t caught you up there.”               

“This is not my fault.”               

Quatre sighed.  “I hope he’s alright.”               

He said it so softly, Trowa almost missed it.  Heero and Duo didn’t.  They turned him mid-argument and watched Quatre stare moodily out the window.  Duo glanced once at Heero.  Heero shifted slightly towards Quatre’s leg.                

“I’m sure he’s fine, Quatre,” He said.  Quatre nodded once, slowly and clearly unconvinced.  “We would have heard if he wasn’t.”              

"I don’t know,” Duo muttered.   “Maybe a spill on the highway will pound some sense into his head.”  Quatre threw him an unusually venomous look.  “A non-lethal one, of course.”               

“That’s not funny.”              

“Wasn’t meant to be.”  Quatre huffed.  He nearly knocked the glass off the board in his haste to get off the bed.  Heero frowned at Duo and gestured angrily with his head.  Sighing, Duo pulled Quatre back by the wrist.               

“Let go, Duo.  I’m going to bed.”               

“I’m not letting go.  You know I didn’t mean it like that.”               

Quatre sneered at him.  “And just how did you mean it, Duo,” he asked.  Duo opened his mouth and then closed it.  He sighed and looked away, running a hand through his hair.              

“I don’t know,” he said, picking at the bedspread.  “I guess I’m just—”                               

“If the word ‘bitter’ comes out of your mouth, I swear I’ll fucking hit you.”  

Trowa blinked, his mouth dropping open.  He wasn’t sure which was more surprising: the threat or the swear.  Quatre wasn’t overly prudish, but he always thought that threats were the least productive when trying to get one’s way.  And _that_ swear, in Quatre’s opinion, was the least needed in any situation.  He had to be furious to actually say it.               

Heero and Duo shared Trowa’s surprise.  Duo recovered first, snapping his mouth closed and letting it turn with his own irritation.              

“I think,” he spat. “That I have every right to be bitter considering Trowa lied—”               

“Oh yeah, that’s right.  He ‘lied’.”  Quatre snorted and snatched the glass from the board.  He drained it in three gulps and slammed it down onto the board.  The stem snapped.  “Is it lonely on that pedestal, Duo?  Trowa didn’t lie.  How could he, considering we never asked?  Now, if we had said ‘Trowa, is there something disturbing about you physically that we should know about?’ and he said ‘no,’ then you could accuse him of lying.  But that’s not what happened, now is it? 

“No, but—” 

“Damn right, no.  He kept a secret, Duo.  That’s it.  So you’re not allowed to be fucking bitter, okay?  We can’t be bitter about secrets, not considering we all keep them.” 

Trowa wanted to be delighted, he really did, but the “disturbed” Quatre had thrown into the middle of his excellent logic chilled him to the bone.  It was better than Trowa deserved, but it hurt nonetheless.  Still, it was the best he could, or should, hope for.  

Duo blinked for a moment, lips parted as if he actually hadn’t thought about it that way.  Trowa wouldn’t be surprised.  Trowa frowned as a smile started to slip across Duo’s face.  Duo clicked his tongue once before pulling the wine glass away from Quatre.                

“I think you’ve had enough.”               

Quatre looked like he wanted to hit him.  “Damn it, Duo, this isn’t funny.”              

“It’s not supposed to be, Cat,” he said with a sigh.  Duo ran a hand up the back of his neck.  “Do you know how much I hate it when you’re right?  Look, I know I haven’t been very fair—” he smiled sheepishly when Quatre glared.  “Okay, okay, even _remotely_ fair, to Trowa.  You’re right.  We’ve all have our secrets.  I guess—” 

Duo sighed again, bringing his braid around with nervous fingers.  He plucked at the hair hard, as he often did when he was frustrated.  “I don’t know.  Being bitter is easier.  I get bitter, I understand bitter.  And this, this I really don’t get.”               

“I don’t think Trowa gets it much himself,” Quatre murmured.  His head dipped towards his chest.                

“We always expected secrets,” Heero said slowly, his glass dangling from his fingers.  His eyes glittered in the light.  Trowa, disturbed by the absolute focus, shrank back into the black hall.  “They kept us safe, so we kept them close.  And although we don’t necessarily,” he struggled with the word.  “ _Need_ them now, it was never expected, never required, to give them up.”               

“But we can.”              

“Yes, Quatre, we can but we don’t have to.  We don’t have to force it.  It’s still all right for us to have them,” he said, his voice rising, just a fraction, at the end.  Heero glanced up at Quatre for a moment, with a tiny but painful question tightening his face.               

Quatre sighed.  “I would never make any of you tell me anything.”               

Trowa shivered suddenly.  He assumed it was because the black anger rolling across Duo’s face was disturbingly foriegn.  His limited consciousness assured him, it wasn’t.  Still Trowa stayed, watching the sneer pulling on Duo’s face curiously.             

“Trowa didn’t even get the chance.”               

Oh.  That.              

“Lady Une really thinks the leak was internal,” Quatre asked.            

Duo snorted.  “Oh she knows it, and she’s furious.”               

Furious didn’t even begin describe it.  Leaks were uncommon in the Preventors but they had been known to happen (people weren’t perfect after all), but never of this magnitude.  And never with an agent getting…injured in the way Trowa had.  Which was of course not nearly as important, thankfully.  Kader was the priority.  Every day there was new information confirming that he was slowly but surely planning a war.  And now there was a leak.  It compromised everything.               

“I hope whoever it is can either run very far very fast, or else has a wife and two kids being held hostage,” Duo said.  “Une’s gunning for him.”                

Heero nodded.  “Prison is not an option.”              

“That bad, huh?”              

“You have no idea.”               

“Her choices are narrow,” Heero explained, leaning back into the mattress.  “But not that narrow.  There are those of us who were on the sting—”               

“There was a fun hour,” Duo muttered.  Indeed; Trowa had had torture sessions more enjoyable than those sixty minutes of fine grilling.              

“—but there are others.  People with access to the information.  Une was particular on who gets to see what, went all out on security just to avoid a situation like this.  So whoever it is high up or intricately involved, or both.”              

“People don’t even _know_ about this,” Duo said.  “There are rumors, of course, but no one actually knows we’re after Kader, or that there’s a leak.  They just know we set up a sting, and messed up.”              

Quatre sighed, rubbing his eyes.  He slid down on the bedspread and curled, careful not to upset the chess board.  He buried his face into the bedding.  Heero and Duo glanced at each other.  Heero rose after a moment and sat on the edge of the bed while Duo slid around to Quatre’s back.  Trowa shuddered again.             

“I haven’t noticed anything,” Quatre muttered into the mattress.  “No new faces, no unusual calls or guests.  He’s perfectly composed, as always.”              

Duo squeezed his shoulder.  “No one’s asking you to spy on him.  Don’t wear yourself out over this.”             

“He’s mocking me.”               

Duo tilted his head; Trowa mirrored him.  “Mocking you?”             

“He knows I know,” he said.  Quatre fisted the bedspread.  “He’ll be all composed, and then he’ll catch my eye and, god, that fucking grin.”              

“Cat,” Duo sighed.  “Quatre, don’t do this.”

It was hard to watch.  They always tried so hard to stop him before it progressed this far.  They knew the tone, knew the signs of an impending attack of heart.  But sometimes, like tonight, it came on Quatre too quickly for anyone of them to really be of any use.  Quatre pulled his knees to his chest.  His fingers clutched his heart.  He shivered as he began to gasp.  Damn his empathy.               

“He, and him, and I, I just can’t do anything.”              

“No one is asking you to do anything,” Heero said.               

“It probably wouldn’t be a good idea anyway.  God forbid you mess up Une’s already messed up operation,” Duo said.  A halfhearted glare was all he got from Quatre before he buried his face against his knees.  “Quatre, don’t do this to yourself.”               

Trowa assumed, when he bent over Quatre’s coiled body, that Duo was trying to hear whatever Quatre had muttered.  He was sure he had heard something, garbled by the denim.  So the shivering and the sudden urge to run as far and as fast as he could irritated Trowa.  This paranoia was starting to get ridiculous.  When Duo took too long, however, when he slid his hand across Quatre’s blonde hair—                  

But that was impossible.  Even without the creaking from their bedroom that woke him up on occasion, Trowa knew that Duo wasn’t _that_ tactless.  And Heero would never accept such a blatant display of affection from an ex, let alone a boyfriend.  So the fact that he wasn’t lashing out, or at least glaring, meant that what he was seeing clearly wasn’t actually happening.  He was hallucinating.  His imagination was obviously completely out of control.               

Duo’s lips pressed against Quatre’s shoulder. “Quatre,” he sighed.               

 _No, idiot, it’s not._                

Trowa gasped, sharp pains suddenly flaring in his arms.  The pain spread across his chest.  Gripping the doorframe, he covered his mouth with his hand.  If they heard him choking, gagging, whimpering as he was—But they wouldn’t hear him.  Not with them so occupied.               

 _Idiot.  Stupid, stupid, stupid. What are you doing?  Leave._               

His vision darkened as he stumbled back.  Trowa sank to his knees as he wheezed.  Unfortunately the sound wasn’t loud enough to block them out.               

 _Leave!_

He staggered into the wall.  He would never make it down the hall.  There wasn’t enough oxygen in his blood.  He’d fall somewhere, like down the stairs.  But then he might blackout and then he wouldn’t have to listen to—                

“Heero!”               

 _Leave, god damn it!_

Trowa shot out of bed—or at least attempted to.  The white-hot pain dancing down (or was it up) his arms strangled a breathless cry from him.  It ebbed some when he fell back to the mattress.  Of course, then Trowa was distinctly aware of the warm and wet something slipping along his skin, tickling his wrists, which were stuck above his head.  When he squirmed, hoping to twist out of the hold, a second restraint snagged and scratched his ankles.               

The unfamiliar ceiling and the double set of cuffs holding him should have had Trowa bucking and threatening to tear his limbs off with the struggle.  Instead he stared at the blood staining the metal.  He was too confused to panic yet.  It wasn’t until he realized just how incomplete his memory was that the first twinges of hysteria started.  His pulse shot up when, through the headache pounding against his temples, he felt the slick caress of bed sheets.              

Naked.  Bed.  Cuffs.   Bad.               

“You’re finally awake.  I was starting to get worried,” Kader said with almost genuine concern.  The bed dipped where he sat, rolling Trowa’s hips towards him.  His large, warm hand patted Trowa’s quivering thigh.  “How do you feel?”               

Trowa’s mouth opened soundlessly twice before he could speak.  “You son of a bitch.”                

Kader rolled his eyes.  “Hello to you, too.”  Leaning over, he brushed stray strands of hair from Trowa’s eyes and attempted to examine his head.  “How’s your head?”               

“Don’t touch me,” Trowa hissed, wrenching his head away.  Smirking, Kader caught his hair and twisted it.  He pulled Trowa’s head back hard.  “Get these things off of me.”              

“No.  You gave Nizar quite a shiner—” _Good!_   “—And I have no desire to be elbowed or kicked.  Now how’s your head?”              

The Arab he remembered, the one with the scarred face, who had stood over him as he struggled.  Trowa remembered him dropping like a rock.  Trowa supposed he had to give the old man some credit; whatever he hit had him with had _hurt_ , and his aim was impeccable.  The base of his head still throbbed.                

“How do you think?”                

“I think between the alcohol and the paperweight, you have a very bad headache and would like some aspirin.”               

Trowa grit his teeth at the thought of getting anything from him.  “No, thank you.  I’ll manage.”                

“Right.  Well, for my own amusement, I’m going to go and get it anyway.  And a glass of water, too.”  Kader rose, knocking Trowa’s hips back.  “I’ll be back shortly, so just relax.”               

He waited until Kader was out of the doorway before trying, again, to free either of his hands or feet.  When that got too frustrating and painful, Trowa tried to piece together his memory.  There was too much of a drunken haze toget very far.  Panic absorbed his attention.  His pulse thundered in his ears.  Trowa shook his head wildly as heat prickled at the corners of his eyes.  He needed to stay calm.  He needed to focus.  He whipped his head around to look at the room.              

Bed.  That was a given.  He flexed and found no edge.  A large bed, then.  Despite knowing what he’d find, Trowa glanced towards his hands and then his feet.  There was half a foot, give or take, from either set to the bedpost.  His head fell back to the sheets and he measured the sides.  He was stretched across from left post to right.  The posts were slightly ornate and stopped just short of the ceiling.  There was no canopy.  Trowa shifted his hips; the sheets were slick and cool.  Expensive.               

On his right, there was a dresser made from the same wood as the bed.  Standard looking: six drawers; three on each side; black handles; polished top.  There was a handgun in its holster between a hairbrush and a bottle of cologne.  Trowa caught his reflection in the mirror over it: bruises, manacles, and all.               

Trowa yanked his head back and caught sight of the desk just to the right of the dresser.  Same material but its contents were more interesting.  There were several folders of varying thicknesses, most of which had their contents spilling out, and a couple of thick books Trowa assumed were manuals of some sort.  Large sheets of paper hung off the edge of desk.  They were either maps or schematics, judging by their size.  He couldn’t be sure.               

Since he couldn’t satisfy his curiosity, Trowa turned his head and took in the left side of the bed.  Closest was a bedside table, complete with lamp and book.  The corner nearest to the bed was lined with books, a plush chair sitting in the open space between the two tall cases.  He squinted at the titles; less than half made any sense.  There was a closet on this side, too, but it was closed.              

Trowa frowned.  There was something wrong with the room.  He looked around one more time and found it.  There were no windows anywhere.  There was nothing at all to interrupt the solid glossy bronze of the walls.  He frowned.  No windows to get his bearings or escape through.  No vent that he could see, either.                

“You’re in my most current residence,” Kader said from the door.  He had a tray in one hand and an irritating smirk.  “In my bedroom, in case you weren’t sure.”              

“I was,” Trowa replied.  Observation and focus had done their job; the panic was safely under his control for the moment.  His voice had dropped back to normal.  That seem to surprise Kader.  He arched an eyebrow, setting the tray down on the bedside table.                

“Rest assured, you’re still within driving distance of your house and your business.  And your bike is in one piece.”               

There was a fuzzy memory of Trowa cracking his head on the roof of an expensive car in an empty parking lot.  Trowa frowned.  So that meant he left his bike…at the bar?              

“You look like your head is starting to hurt again.  Are you sure you won’t take the aspirin?”              

“I’m thinking.”              

“Well, that explains the pain,” he chuckled. “Perhaps I can be of assistance.  Are you perhaps wondering what you’ve forgotten in the last,” he glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table.  “Twenty-four hours or so?”  Trowa’s mouth twisted into a sneer before he could stop himself.  “That would be a yes.” 

Kader seemed to, or rather pretended to, not notice Trowa losing his grip. “Well, let’s see,” he started as Trowa tugged angrily on his restraints.  “When I found you, you were exceedingly drunk.  The bartender was going to call you a taxi but decided to come back and argue with me about taking you home instead.  You could barely stand up or understand the conversation, but you agreed to come with me anyway.  I got you out of the bar and into the parking lot before finally carrying you—you should eat more, by the way.”              

“I’ll take it into consideration,” he muttered.

“You were then violently ill by my car, cracked your head on it, and finally fell asleep.  You were still sleeping when I left this morning.”              

There was a churning to his stomach, now that he actually thought about it.               

“Now.” he said, glancing at him.  “What happened before I found you at the bar, I can’t tell you.  You’ll have to remember that on your own.”              

Trowa had no problem recalling _those_ memories; getting rid of them was the issue.  Hence the alcohol, which had failed to do the one thing Trowa had ever asked of it.  With his luck, it had probably made it worse.            

Kader must have noticed his irritation.  “Just take the aspirin.  I promise, it’s nothing odd.  It’ll help with the pain.”              

“It’s not the fucking pain,” Trowa snapped.  He regretted the slip immediately.  Kader’s curiosity was obvious.              

“No?  Then what is it?  Something from before the bar?”              

Trowa was not _that_ easy, or that upset.  Forcing some semblance of composure, he stared at him and rattled the cuffs.  “Why am I here?”             

“You would probably feel better if you told me.”              

“Why am I here,” he grit out, pulling a little harder.  The smile melted off Kader’s face.  Trowa inhaled sharply as he moved, covering Trowa’s body with his wide shadow.  He gripped Trowa’s chin tightly and smirked at the sudden stillness of Trowa’s chest.               

“I would have thought that was obvious, Trowa Barton.”  Trowa tried to find his breath as he waited for the large hand on his face or the one next to his head to move.  This was nothing new, he reminded himsef.  He was expecting it.  He could handle it.  He would certainly handle it better this time anyway.  Trowa braced himself for the fingers to slid down his skin, bringing up the memories of old touches in their wake.   So when Kader sudden left him, rocking him on the mattress, Trowa couldn’t stop himself from gasping.               

“You’ll find that I’m rather obsessive, especially when it comes to things that intrigue or challenge me.  You do both, so naturally I’ve found myself with a preoccupation,” he explained.  Kader lifted some folders from the desk.  Trowa sifted through the political tone easily: Kader was stalking him because he was a freak.   “Of course, I didn’t, and don’t, expect your cooperation with my wants—” _How perceptive of him._ “—so I took the liberty of providing some incentives.”                

Kader opened the folder over him.  Sheets of paper, some slick and others coarse, fluttered over him.  Trowa raised his head.  High-resolution photos: of the house, headquarters, Wufei, Zechs, Duo, Quatre, Heero, _Catherine_.   Their homes, their lives.  Between a photo of Une, Zechs, and Wufei during a debriefing and another of himself and Heero pulling apart the car’s engine was a report headed “Millardo Peacecraft.”  Quatre’s was next to his right knee, Duo’s his left.  Heero’s and Wufei’s were probably closer to his head.  His own was settled over his abdomen next to a shot of him bent over his desk.               

“I was in a bit of a rush, so this was all I managed to throw together.  There will be more, if you’re interested,” he said.  Trowa’s eyes widened as he moved from one picture and report to the next, the magnitude of the situation finally dawning on him.                

“H-How?”               

“I’m heading a terrorist organization, Trowa.  I have to know everything about everyone, including the Preventors, and you.”  Brushing aside some sheets, KAder sat again by his waist.  “I know where you live, I know where you work.  I know which café you buy your lunch from, and where you visited your sister two days ago.”  Blood thudded in his ears.  “I can find any of coworkers, any of your friends, at any moment.  And I can order a missile strike in the next.”               

“You don’t have such capabilities,” Trowa murmured after a long silence.  There was nothing about weapons’ operations in any of the reports.  _Nothing_.  The group was a fledgling: growing, planning, building alliances and strength.  Kader was in bed with weapons manufacturers and marketers on the black-market, but nothing had coming to fruition yet.  Not with the country’s king causing a minor state of panic. 

 _The bastard’s bluffing.  He has no weapons, not here.  And if there are any in his damn country, there is no way they could have that kind of range—_               

“I assure you, Trowa,” Kader said slowly.  He held another new photo in front of his face.  It was of the safe house, just the house, painted in the gold and sapphire of twilight, and stamped with a blood-red sight.  Trowa could almost hear the sustained tone of the missile as it honed in and locked on the front door.  The time stamp wasn’t even a week ago; they had all been home. 

“I could,” he said slowly.  “If I wanted to.”                 

“If,” Trowa asked after a moment, taking the bait.  Kader smiled.  He reached down and stroked back Trowa’s hair.  He fought back the urge to bite.               

“I don’t want to blow people up, Trowa,” he said grinning.  “Especially not your friends.  It’s disrespectful.”  Trowa’s brows raised then knitted.  “I would much rather kill the Gundam pilots face-to-face.  Firing a missile from long range is an insult to your skill.  A bullet would be more fitting, but also very cumbersome.”               

It was times like this Trowa really wished he hadn’t destroyed Heavyarms.               

“As much as I want you, and as much as I would prefer to deal with the pilots directly, I can’t jeopardize _everything_ I’ve worked for.  So some compromises had to be made.  Thus,” he smiled, waving the photo before setting it on his chest.                

Trowa stared at the photo.  “You haven’t answered my question.”                

“I could blow them up, if I wished.  If you cooperate, and I believe you will, then I will have no reason for that wish."              

A fist twisted in his stomach.  He had an idea of what it meant—a very good idea.  He wasn’t sure why he was daring to ask.               

“Cooperate how?”  The question ended with a hiss.  Kader’s hand, the one not stroking his hair, had slithered between his legs.  It was an unwelcome warmth.               

“I already told you,” he purred into his ear.  Trowa’s body tightened as the hand moved ever so slightly.  “I want you, and I will have you.  The question is: do I have to kill them first?”               

Trowa focused on the extortion to keep the blood from rushing to his face; the hand was moving quicker and more insistently.  Extortion.  It was extortion.  The son-of-a-bitch was resorting to this just to rape him?  Wouldn’t it have been easier to do him while he was unconscious again?  _Of course not.  I’d have no room to say no, and where is the fun in that?_   He was banking on the thrill of guilt.               

And damn it if it wasn’t working.  Trowa squirmed, gritting his teeth.  Part of him, betrayed and vindictive, wanted them to burn.  He didn’t know if it was because of the backstabbing or the slinking or just the bitter taste of seeing what he couldn’t have.  He didn’t care either.  His battered pride demanded blood.  

Unfortunately, the rest of him understood.  Didn’t like-minded individuals so often come together like that?   Dependent on the strength and comfort they could draw from others with the same experiences?  How could he expect anything different from them?  It was for those very reasons, no doubt, that they decided to live together in the first place.  How could Trowa be surprised?  It was probably a much more frequent occurrence than he knew, especially before he was invited.  Going behind his back?  They were probably just trying to be mindful of his feelings.  Even if they weren’t going to invite him, or let him know, they couldn’t wave their relationship in his face.

And if the taste of the forbidden was the root of his anger, well, Trowa already knew how stupid that was.  What had he ever done to deserve affection?  How many opportunities had he spurned?  For survival, and for fear, he wouldn’t open up, not even to them.  If they had asked, if they had begged, Trowa would have shuddered and rejected them.  There was no other reaction.  

His desperate need for secrecy had bitten him much harder than he thought.  

That is, if they wanted him at all, which was impossible.  Even if Trowa had gotten, or ever got, the chance, nothing would come of it.  Regardless of who, or why, or whatever, there was no ignoring that Trowa was a freak: an abomination unfit for affection.  He knew that.  It had been made very clear to him, many times.  There was no one in the world would ever forgive him for be so warped and ruined.  

What sort of monstrosity was he, then, if he hoped they would suffer because they did what was natural?   If he loved them, and sometimes he wondered if he was even capable of that, could Trowa honestly deny them?

Fahd would rape him, anyway.  Why shouldn’t some good for someone come out of it?

Trowa’s face burned.  Jaw clenched, he twisted fitfully.  His fingers and toes raked at the sheets as Kader’s fingers pushed in.  A low whimper crept out of his throat, vibrating weakly against Kader’s lips.  Low murmurs played in his ears as the lingering touches they had left him with rose up out of his skin.  The chains rattled as he thrashed.

He shouldn’t do this.  He didn’t know the rules this time.

_“Heero!”_

It was stupid and unfair. 

_“Duo!”_

He was selling himself.

_“Quatre!”_

For nothing.

“Deal!...Aah…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually forgot how much I enjoy this chapter until I sat down to edit it. And that took a lot less time than I thought it would. I'll take a look at ten tomorrow but I should be able to post the rest of Chains here with much more regularity.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the new arrangement beginnings.

“Trowa, could you grab the plates for me?”

As Quatre was looking over his shoulder as he said it, he didn’t have to open his mouth.  Trowa, glancing sideways at him, nodded.  He finished filling Heero’s mug, set the half-empty coffee pot on the table and gathered the empty plates, setting them one-by-one on the counter next to Quatre to receive the pancakes.                 

“Thank you, Trowa,” he said with a smile.               

“Of course,” Trowa answered before carrying each plate.  Trowa looked up from setting Quatre’s just in time to see Duo _bounce_ down the stairs.  He withheld a grimace, waiting.                

“Thank god it’s Friday,” Duo cheered.  _Maybe for you_.               

“Only for some of us,” Quatre said gently, with a not-so-subtle glance in Trowa’s direction.  Duo had enough tact to look sheepish, running a hand along the back of his head.                

“I’m sure she won’t seriously make you work the next three weekends.”               

Trowa’s sneer showed him just how much value he had in “certainty.”                

“I mean, come on, okay, so you didn’t come in at all Monday, and you didn’t call out, and it did kind of put some of us in a bit of a jam—”               

“—And you worried more than half the department,” Heero said as he slipped out from behind him.               

“That too.”               

“Since, well.”               

“Yeah.”               

Trowa frowned.  “That wasn’t my intention, Heero.”               

“I never said it was.”               

“And I did call.”               

“Monday night.”               

Trowa sighed softly.  Yes, Monday night, which hadn’t done him any good at all.  Not that it was entirely his fault, what with being chained to a terrorist’s bed and—               

He set the plate down a little harder than he meant to.  Quatre, assuming it was from the conversation, smiled a bit.                

“I’m sure if you explained it—”               

Trowa shook his head.  “No.  I made choices I shouldn’t have.  If these are the consequences—”               

“But you were in a freaking accident.  That’s kind of a really legitimate excuse,” Duo said.               

Trowa shrugged.  “Minor accident, minor injuries, no hospital time.”                

“And you have no idea how happy we are about that.” Actually, Trowa had a very good idea how happy they were that he hadn’t been splattered all over the highway.  Especially Duo.  “Thank god  your bike got more beat up than you.”               

Trowa winced.  He almost considered crying when, after Nizar had dropped him off in the parking lot and taken the blindfold back, he realized that dropping his bike one time wasn’t going to be enough.  It took at total of three falls for it to look damaged enough to suit his story.  Four probably would have satisified even Heero’s suspicions, but way more than he could handle.  Trowa would be saving for months as it was to fix the damage.               

 _And Heero’s going to be Heero.  If he wants to be suspicious, he’ll be suspicious, with or without my help._                

Even now, with just the mention of the “accident,” Heero’s attitude changed.   His fingers tightened around the bowl of cut-up fruit he was carrying to the table, and as they passed each other, his eyes narrowed and ran over Trowa’s body and face with eerie efficiency.  Trowa kept his expression carefully blank.  Heero broke off his search after a moment.  For now.  

Quatre and Duo may take him for his word, but Heero could not.  His mind simply wasn’t wired to _accept_.  Everything, absolutely everything, had to be scrutinized, because there as always something to be found.  Trowa had been thankful for it during the war. 

Now he was just thankful Heero knew absolutely nothing about motorcycles.  Which could always change, if Trowa gave him enough reason.  

He shook his head, taking sitting at the table after putting down the last plate.  “Accident or no accident, I could have found a way, but I didn’t.  I’ll just have to accept the consequences.” 

“Three weekend shifts,” Duo sighed.  “That bites.”  

It wouldn’t “bite” so much if Trowa could have at least one day off a week.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t, considering he was already on Une’s black list.  Kader had excellent timing, the bastard.   

Trowa was going to need to see the dentist soon if he kept grinding his teeth.  

Quatre smiled—no one know better than him how hard weeks of nonstop work could be—before reaching for the syrup in the middle of the table.  Heero and Quatre’s fingers met, lightly and briefly, over it.  Trowa kept his eyes on his plate.  He had ordered himself on Wednesday to stop dissecting their ever action and expression for proof that it hadn’t been a drunken one-night stand.  

Which it probably wasn’t.  He hadn’t found any sort of proof to the contrary, and he had been watching closely enough that he should, but that didn’t matter.  They all were rather mindful of other people’s feelings.  Trowa decided to spare himself the headaches and accept that just because he couldn’t see it didn’t mean it wasn’t there.  That understanding would make it easier for him to ignore them.  Hopefully. 

Duo was just about to snag the last pancake when the phone rang.  Three of them looked towards the phone.  They never got phone calls this early.  

None of them noticed the color draining from Trowa’s face. 

“Little early for solicitors, you think,” Duo asked.  Quatre rose.  He had cut off the fifth ring by the time Duo and Heero both turned their attentions back to the table.  Trowa’s coloring didn’t start to come back until he was absolutely sure that the call was not meant for him. 

“Yes…yes, I see…ah…no, no it’s fine.  I can leave now.  That should be plenty of time.” Duo looked up and frowned.  He threw a nasty look at the cord going from the wall, and Trowa wonderd if he was going to yank it out.  “Yes…yes, I’ll be there soon.  Thank you, good bye.” 

Duo waited until Quatre had hung up.  “So what do the old geezers want now?” 

“Relena,” he said with his arms crossed, “wanted to know if I would take over a meeting.  The original organizer is ill.” 

“Uh-huh, but that wasn’t Relena on the phone, now was it,” Duo asked.  Huffing, Quatre picked up his mug and took it to the kitchen.  “You aren’t going to finish breakfast.”  

“No time.  I have to leave now.” 

“The meeting is today, isn’t it,” he asked.  Quatre set the thermos on the side table as he tugged on his jacket.  “And he waited until the last minute, didn’t he?” 

Quatre’s smile was strained.  “Leftovers please?”  Heero nodded.  He relaxed a bit.  Quatre zipped his coat up, ran a hand through his hair, and grabbed his coffee and keys.  “I’ll see you later tonight.” 

Duo opened his mouth after the door was closed and Quatre’s car safely down the driveway.  Heero cut across him. 

“Finish your breakfast.” 

The rest of breakfast short; they all suddenly seemed to lose their appetites.  Heero and Trowa each left untouched pancakes on their plates.  No one touched Quatre’s barely-eaten meal.  It all joined the remains of Duo’s in the trash.  

If either of them noticed Trowa’s lack of appetite or the awkward way he handled clearing the table and washing the dishes, they assumed it was the same as their own.  Why shouldn’t they?  He had been careful to keep the anxiety about Kader’s call to himself.  But that wouldn’t last much longer.  Not if he kept paling, or worse, dropping things like the pot of vegetables he had on Tuesday, with every phone call.  

He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be impressed or furious with the bastard’s self-restraint.  _If_ _he would_ _just get_ _this over with._   If he would, then Trowa could steel himself for the next, and the next, and begin to desensitize himself. 

Again. 

With breakfast thrown away, Trowa followed Heero and Duo outside, into the flurries.  He glanced up at the gray sky before looking at the driveway.  There had been no rain or sleet all week.  The snow wasn’t sticking well, either.  It would be a safe, dry drive.  Trowa didn’t even _look_ at his bike as he trailed Duo and Heero and climbed into the backseat.   Like he had all week.  Like he would do all of next week, too.  He didn’t trust himself not to make a telling expression or growl at the damage he had caused, and the last thing he wanted to see was Heero make _that_ face.  

Trowa settled into the seat.  He shuddered when the engine turned over and closed his eyes.  At least Duo decided to turn on the radio today.  He turned it up so that it would drown out the low grinding of the engine struggling for air.  He had known the engine needed looking at, but Trowa hadn’t realized how badly until he had to listen to it for a week.  Hopefully, it would last until March; he didn’t want to take it apart in the middle of winter. 

Thanks to the dry roads, their commute was surprisingly uneventful, other than unusual rise in profanity as Heero cursed the engine at most red lights.  Heero pulled into the garage, parked, and only Duo’s persistent pulling on his elbow stopped him from walking around to the hood and dealing with the engine right then.  The three of them headed towards the elevator, Heero casting one last irritated look at the car as they went. 

Trowa tilted his head as they arrived.  A good roll of yellow caution tape sealed off the elevator door.  

“Looks like she took your advice,” Heero said.  Duo frowned as he followed him towards the stairwell.      

Heero and Duo were halfway up the second flight of stairs by the time Trowa managed to step onto the bottommost, after having held the door for Wufei and Zechs (Wufei growling about Sunday drivers on Friday mornings) and several other operatives not on his floor.  The stairwell seemed even narrower than usual thanks to the high influx of traffic.   Trowa walked close to the railing. 

A couple of maintenance workers armed with toolboxes came down the stairs from the flights about, walking two by two.  Trowa pressed a little closer to the railing.  He still knocked shoulders with one who was just a little too broad for the space.  Trowa thought he had brushed cement.  The worker turned as well as he could on the step and bowed his head.  

“Excuse me,” he said in a low voice. 

“No problem,” Trowa said after a moment, resisting the urge to turn away.  The large, darker man nodded and continued down the stairs.  Trowa headed up the stairs, somehow managing not to look over his shoulder. 

Trowa knew there were plenty of Middle Easterners in the city, and quite a few in the building.  More than a handful of them worked on his floor alone.  And there had to be more than a few in maintenance.  He knew it wasn’t Kader, and he knew it was ridiculous to associate everyone with even a touch of Middle Eastern blood with the bastard.  Trowa also knew that that wasn’t what he was doing.  There was something about the face.  Trowa knew it from somewhere, and somehow it was connected with Kader.  Maybe it had something to do with the split lip. 

By the time Trowa reached his desk, he knew he wasn’t going to figure it anytime soon.  And unless he wanted to incur more of Une’s wrath, Trowa knew he had to set the unease aside.  Trowa shrugged out of his coat and draped it over the back his chair.  He sat down and looked at the pile of paperwork, and then the rest of his desk, with a frown. 

His pen was gone. 

Trowa had more.  But he remembered putting his pen on top of the pile yesterday.  He put it on top of the pile every day and it had never wandered off before.  The small disruption put him on edge.  There was probably a logical explanation.  Someone might have taken it or knocked it off.  It could be under the desk or in a drawer.  Trowa ducked down and looked.  No pen.  He straightened and opened the nearest drawer.  It wasn’t there either.  He opened the first drawer on the other side

 _They_ _probably walked off with it,_ he thought as he opened the second drawer and then the third.  It was honestly to most likely scenario.  Why would someone take the time to pick up a pen, open a drawer— 

\--and stick it on top of the brown-papered box they left in the bottom-most drawer of Trowa’s desk. 

Trowa stared at small package.  His thoughts moved quickly from how it had gotten there, to how many steps it would take to reach the windows, to how worthless such a small bomb would be unless it was partnered with others in other drawers, to how he wished he knew more about disarming improvised explosives than making them.  Trowa reached for his pen and, as calmly as he could, nudged the box with his finger.  It shifted easily, and rattled. 

Pen in hand, Trowa slid the drawer closed.  He turned to the pile of papers, scanned the first, and set to work.  So it wasn’t a bomb.  There was no successful or practical bomb in existence that was that light.  He felt no safer.  Since it wasn’t a physical threat, though, Trowa ignored it for the moment. 

He considered the box again when he opened that drawer looking for whiteout.  Now having an idea about what it was, Trowa set the whiteout on top of it and pulled them out together.  He set the box by his lamp, where it stayed as he worked and served as an excellent whiteout stand.   Since Trowa  outwardly ignored it, the few people who walked past his desk ignored it as well.  Even when, after an hour of not-challenging-enough paperwork, Trowa set his pen down and picked up the box, no one asked him about it.  _It’s amazing what you can get away with_ _if you act like it’s perfectly normal._

Trowa almost lost his practiced calm when he opened it.  He nearly gasped and shoved it away.  Instead Trowa forced his surprise to make his fingers clench around the box.  It was slightly less suspicious.  

Of all the things he expected to find, his cell phone was not one of them.  

His alarm faded almost as soon as it began when Trowa realized that it couldn’t be his cell phone.  There had been no opportunity for Kader to take it.  Trowa hadn’t taken it to the bar, because he had left it at home in the first place.  He hadn’t taken it during the “incident,” and he had had it on him all week since the “accident,” just sooth Quatre and Duo’s nerves and make them a little less irritating.  

No one had tried to mug him this month, either.  Trowa was quite sure that after the beating he gave the unfortunate idiot last month, every pickpocket in the city knew not to operate around the Preventor’s Headquarters.  

He had to be sure, though.  Setting the box in his lap, Trowa leaned back and stretched.  As his arms lowered, he patted his coat.  His phone was still in the right pocket. 

He set the box back by the lamp, picked up his pen, and started a new report.  About half way down the page, Trowa realized that it didn’t even look all that much like his phone.  It was roughly the same size and color: standard gunmetal gray, fitting in the palm of his hand.  The feel, however, was different.  Trowa’s was matted, a rough little thing with a couple of scratches and dings from when it slipped out of his hand once or twice.  Trowa didn’t want or need a phone, and therefore wasn’t particularly careful with it, so his cell phones were always cheap.  Expendable.   

The phone in the box was new, sleek and stylish.  In other words, expensive. 

As if he needed more evidence, the next time Trowa picked up the box, he noticed paper underneath the phone.  He yanked open the drawer and tossed the box in.    _God damn him._  

During lunch, after the floor slowly emptied and he had declined Heero’s invitation, Trowa opened the drawer again.  The phone was heavy in his hand.  Pushing back from his desk, he stood as normally as possible and walked toward the restrooms.  It wasn’t as if a dozen people didn’t go in there to make phone calls every day; it was that he didn’t, and he didn’t trust himself to not draw someone’s (like Heero’s) attention. 

The bathroom was dark.  Trowa walked five steps across the tiled floor before the motion detector spotted him and turned on the fluorescent lights.  He leaned against the wall by the sinks.  It would look less suspicious than slipping into one of the stalls.  Hopefully. 

Trowa glared at the phone before setting it on the edge of the sink.  _Paper first._  He knew it was instructions, and not ones that would be found in a standard operating manual.  The handwriting was surprisingly sloppy.   

 ** _Your voicemail password is 4735._**  

Trowa tossed paper into the trash after he ripped it to unnecessarily tiny pieces.  Snatching up the phone, he considered throwing it away too, also in unnecessarily tiny pieces.  Trowa flipped it open instead and turned it on.  

The screen flashed white before opening the display: a photograph of a leather collar, complete with chain, atop a very familiar mattress.  Trowa ground his teeth.  There was no alert for a new voicemail that he could see.  He started to search, hitting several dead ends and having to return to that display.  He didn’t think he had ever been happier to hear the soft, robotic female common to voicemail systems than right then.  

“Please enter your four digit password,” she said, voice rising and dropping.  Trowa punched it in and settled back against the wall, crossing his legs.  He was going to need the support.    

“You have no new messages.  First skipped message—” 

Trowa shuddered when Kader’s low voice purred in his ear.  “I trust my gift arrived on time, 8 A.M. Friday morning, and that you found sometime in the morning or afternoon to open it.”

Trowa remembered the maintenance worker.  He paled.  

“I’m sure you already have one of these, although probably not one of this quality.  But I have my reasons, other than the minor oversight of not acquiring your number earlier. Which is easy to find, as I’m sure you know.  And I will find it.”

 _I don’t doubt that._  

“But this.  This is my gift to you: a direct line of communication.  Please don’t trouble yourself over the bill.  The phone is registered in my name, and I am more than happy to cover the cost, which means yes, I can and will monitor everything you say and do on this phone.”

 _Of course you will._  

“So I suggest not using this phone for other than talking to me.  Of course, I also suggest you take this phone with you wherever you take your other one.”

 _Which is nowhere, if I have anything to say about it._  

“In fact, I suggest you make answering _this_ phone, my gift, a priority.  I even suggest taking it to bed with you, and for your sake, I hope you take that advice.” 

He didn’t even need to suggest what would happen if Trowa didn’t.  Trowa dug his nails into the phone.  

“Oh, before I forget, you may have noticed there’s no charger in the box.”  Actually, he hadn’t.  Thinking about it now knotted his stomach.  “I seemed to have forgotten to pack it.  My apologies, but you can pick it up when you come over tonight.”

 Trowa’s legs trembled. 

“Nizar will meet you outside your office at 7:30 tonight.  Feel free to bring your bike.  I’m looking forward to seeing you, and don’t worry.  I’ll make sure you have plenty of rest for work tomorrow.” 

“—End of messages.  To delete this message—” 

The phone clattered to the floor.  He was sure she was still going on but Trowa refused to move before he’d gotten his trembling under control.  He stepped away from the wall only after he managed to stop clenching his fists to the point of drawing blood from his palms.  Trowa scooped up the phone, snapped it shut, and stumbled out of the restroom.  

No one noticed.  There was still ten minutes left in lunch.  

Sinking into his chair, Trowa opened the drawer and hide his face.  His hand stopped as it shot back to hurl the phone into the box.  It hung by his ear, trembling.  Slowly, Trowa sat back.  He slipped the phone into his coat.  Face carefully, perhaps too carefully, expressionless, he turned back to his paperwork. 

The day dragged on, uneventful except for the occasional disruption of his thought process.  Everything, from the ridiculousness of being so upset over something he had _agreed_ to—yes under duress but that wasn’t the point—to what would actually happen when Nizar brought him back to wherever that apartment was—and he really shouldn’t think about that, because someone would notice how he flushed and paled in turns--to how the hell did Kader know his schedule in the first place— _You’re surprised?  He got a phone into your desk!  Of course he’s going to know your schedule—_ flitted and spun around in his head.  Trowa finally broke his pen when he wondered if tonight was going to be better or worse than last week.  Or the incident now a few weeks ago.  

He had just finished mopping up the mess and found a fresh copy of the sheet he had ruined when Duo sat on the edge of the desk. 

“Five-thirty.” 

“I do have a clock,” he said. 

“You’re not paying much attention to it if you’re starting a page.” 

Heero slid up beside him.  Between their bodies, Trowa caught a glimpse of Zechs and Wufei.  Zechs waved.  Wufei nodded, a gesture Trowa returned.  They both disappeared into the stairwell. 

“Let’s go and beat the stair traffic.” 

Trowa eyed his stack.  It was convincing enough.  

“You go on ahead.” 

Duo waited until Trowa had filled out the first line.  “You do remember driving in with us, right?” 

“Vividly.” 

“Okay, good.  So how do you plan on getting home if you don’t go now?”

“I could catch a taxi, or a bus.” 

“No, seriously.” 

Trowa grit his teeth.  “I’ll crash upstairs for the night.” 

“Those beds are only good when you’re running seventy-two-hour jobs and too tired to care.” 

“Duo, I need to be back here tomorrow morning,” he said, somehow managing to sound calm.  “The weather is going to be the same tomorrow, if not worse.  And it’s not exactly fair for me to ask you drive me in, is it?  It’s better if I stay tonight.  It’s not like I don’t have plenty to do.” 

Oh no.  He had _plenty_ to do.  And going home would probably make his night a lot worse.  Not only would he be late for his “rendezvous” but there wouldn’t be any quiet way to sneak out of the house.  

“I don’t mind bringing you back,” Heero said.  Trowa closed his eyes.  He could almost feel Heero searching his face.  He sighed, opened his eyes and turned to them with what he hoped was a mildly appreciative but stubborn expression.  Heero frowned a bit before nodding.  “But if you’re sure.” 

“I really should get this done.” 

 “All right.  Just eat something.  And call, if you change your mind.”

“I will,” he said.  Trowa turned away before anything that would attract Heero’s suspicions drifted into his expression.  Duo sighed, throwing up his hands but sliding off the desk. 

“Fine, fine.  I think it’s stupid, but it’s your back.”  His lips quirked into his usual smile.   “Une’s not going to give you a break from braving those beds.” 

“She’s not going to punish me for it either.  Good night, Duo.” 

He waited until he could safely assume they were both in the garage before dropping his pen and holding his head.  There was very little time before he had to go, and even less time before his mind was too involved with things it shouldn’t be for him to focus and be productive.  He supposed he needed to try and make the best of it.  His pen was oddly heavy in his hand. 

Trowa stayed focused long enough to finish almost a fourth of the stack with only minor mistakes.  He rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock on his desk.  He shuffled the finished sheets together and put his pen back into its customary place before looking at it again. 

It _still_ read seven-twenty-five. 

Trowa slid out of his chair, pushed it in, and reluctantly pulled on his coat.  He patted the pockets.  Both phones were there.  Trowa wrapped his hand around the old one tightly as he headed for the stairs.  The stairwell was mostly empty; the garage was almost completely empty.  He grit his teeth as his hands trembled.  

There were thirty cameras on the ground floor of the parking garage.  He would walk by approximately a dozen on his way to the street.  Trowa kept his stride long and even, if not a little quicker than usual.  He checked his watch twice.  The next bus wouldn’t come for twenty minutes; it would drop him close to home around midnight.  Trowa needed to be convincing.  He put a little spring into his step.  He needed to convince anyone who might be curious enough to check. 

Which was no one. 

Snow fell nearly sideways once he hit the street.  Trowa pulled the collar of his coat close and looked around.  A person hurried down the sidewalk to the left of him, away from him and to the nearest door.  There were a few cars, but they were all dark and covered in a couple of inches of snow.  Trowa shivered and looked at his watch.  Seven-thirty-five.  Maybe something came up, or he got tired of waiting.  _Maybe he hit black ice and went over the guardrail._ Trowa couldn’t be that lucky. 

An engine rumbled to his left.  The black pickup truck with thinnest layer of snow flashed its lights once.  Trowa frowned; at least it wasn’t a limousine or a Ferrari. _Or a van with tinted windows._   

Hands in his pockets, Trowa turned and walked down the sidewalk, away from the wind.  The truck waited, its driver probably poised to beep, _or shoot me,_ before following him.  Trowa ducked down the nearest alley before anybody noticed them. 

It was fenced at the end, but wide enough for a K-turn if the scarred Arab was careful.  The truck stopped barely five feet from Trowa’s knees.  _This is what the executed must feel like,_ Trowa thought, his back against the fence, blinded by luxury high beams.  

Nizar—Trowa thought that was the name—stepped out of the cab.  He walked slowly around the hood and stood between the beams.  Trowa refused to squint. 

“Where’s your bike?” 

“Didn’t take it today.”

Nizar muttered something under his breath.  Trowa decided not to mention that no one would be looking for him. 

“Get in.” 

The cab smelled of fresh leather and the soft spice of cigar.  The seats were smooth and firm.  It must have been a new, or rarely used, vehicle.  Trowa wrinkled his nose before getting in.  He had fastened his seatbelt and settled his folded arms over his stomach when a thick black cloth landed on his lap.  

“Put it on,” Nizar said, closing the driver’s door.  Trowa looked at him.  “Put it on or I’ll bash your head against the dash.  Either works.” 

Trowa snatched up the cloth.  Nizar’s brow furrowed with what had to be disappointment.  He turned away just before Trowa tied the blindfold tight. 

Riding in a car was worse blindfolded, especially when the driver was a man who had tried to crack your head open and who obviously couldn’t wait to do it again.  Trowa swayed with the turns, counting the first few (left, right, straight for a few blocks, red light, red light, left), until it was just too nauseating.  Trowa swallowed and dug his fingers into his arms.

Eventually, when he was very close to fidgeting, they stopped.  The engine cut off, and a door opened and closed.  Trowa felt for the buckle, assuming that it was not time to yank the blindfold off, and then the door handle.  The plastic disappeared from beneath his hand with a click.  He clawed at the air and then at the large hand that wrapped itself suddenly around his elbow and pulled.  He barely got his feet under him before Nizar closed the door with a slam and pulled him away from the truck.  

Trowa let Nizar pull him through the garage—it had to be a garage, the echoes were too large for anything smaller—without much struggle.  Nizar released him once they were in an elevator.  Trowa felt the floor shudder before it started to move.  He felt for a wall or rail.  When he found a wall, he leaned back against it.  There was no music.  The rhythmic tapping he heard had to be Nizar. 

The elevator stopped smoothly with a quiet chime.  Trowa pulled away from the hand that tried to tighten around his arm again.  “Take it off,” he snapped. 

“Let’s go.”

“Take. It. Off,” he said.  He heard Nizar growl to his left.  “What could I possibly see now?”                                                                                                                                                   

“Plenty,” Nizar sneered.  But, perhaps because he saw the way Trowa _tightened_ , ready to swing where Nizar’s head had to be, Nizar yanked the blindfold off anyway.  

Once his eyes adjusted, Trowa glared at the bit of hall he was whisked through.  Tall, cream walls, smooth except for the occasional, expensive wrought-iron light fixture and oak door.  Oh, and the cameras.  There were no windows, but there was a door at the end of the hallway, almost seamlessly hidden by the paint.  Underneath his feet, thick, red carpet ran the length of the hall.  Coupled with the high ceiling, Trowa was very certain that very little sound would carry.  

He was more certain he would never get a chance to test it, thanks to the two suited, armed men standing in front of one of the doors. 

Nizar swept them aside with a short, foreign command.  Trowa followed him inside. 

Trowa hadn’t had the time to look at his prison last time, what with the drunken stupor, the unconsciousness, and finally the exhaustion.  It was an attractive prison, he would admit, with rooms opening into one another, evolving from chrome to earth to glass and a breathtaking view.  The furniture shifted with the colors, each piece distinct but appropriate, all of it comfortable and luxurious.  The impracticality choked him.  

Nizar led him to a small steel-and-granite kitchen off the living room.  There, Fahd Kader sat at a chrome-and-glass dinette, enjoying what looked to be a late dinner, complete with wine.  The first few buttons of his dress shirt were undone.  His tie and jacket were draped messily over a chair.  He stood, once Nizar had brought Trowa within grabbing-distance.  

“There you are.  I was beginning to worry.” 

Nizar snorted.  He eyed the jacket and tie with obvious disappoint.  Kader shrug.  Nizar snatched up the articles and left with them, muttering under his breath.  Kader shook his head before looking at Trowa.  His mouth quirked into a small smile.   

“You opened my gift, I see.  I’m so glad.  I trust Nizar gave you little trouble,” he said.  Trowa sat stiffly when Kader gestured to the chair at his left.  He watched Kader’s muscles flex beneath his shirt as he moved. 

“If you don’t count blindfolding as trouble,” Trowa said.

“Be glad I suggested it or he would have improvised.” 

Trowa ground his teeth.  “Who would I tell?”

“No one, I’m sure.  But you can never be too careful.”  His large hand patted Trowa’s thigh, the fingers dipping into the small space between Trowa’s legs.  Trowa’s knees locked.  “Have you eaten?  Ah, it doesn’t matter, you’re too skinny anyway.  Eat.” 

Trowa looked at the table while Kader picked up an empty wine glass.  There was plenty of food, and some of it he recognized.  Well within his reach were assortments of breads, fruits, and vegetables, as well as a bowl of an odd looking dip that smelled delicious.  Anything with meat, whether it was an entrée, side, or garnish, was as far from his as possible.  Trowa frowned. 

“Don’t tell me you are one of _those_ vegetarians, who can’t even stand meat on the same table?”  

Trowa bristled, fingers clenching against his thighs.  How much nerve did Kader have?  First he kidnapped him, then threatened him.  Exploited him, _raped_ him—again.  He dangled Trowa off the edge of a cliff all week.  He lingered in his thoughts, disturbing his sleep, disturbing his meals, and making Trowa more paranoid than even he was comfortable with.  Trowa couldn’t even hear a phone right now without jumping.    _He snuck a phone into my desk, with_ _the most asinine, fucked-up message.  And_ now _he’s_ _being considerate_ _?  Of my_ food _?_

He snatched up the glass from where Kader had set it by his plate.  Red dripped down Kader’s face.  It dripped off his chin onto his wine-stained shirt.  The wine glass trembled in Trowa’s hand.  He felt the stem giving beneath his fingers.  

“This isn’t a date,” he snarled.  “Don’t fuck with me.  Do it and then let me go home.  I have work tomorrow.” 

The slowness with which Kader picked up his napkin and wiped his face should have warned him.  Trowa reared back when one of those impossibly large hands lunged towards his throat.  He swung the wine glass, hoping it would surprise him.  Kader caught his wrist.  Trowa bit down a yelp at the crushing grip.  He almost screamed as Kader yanked him out of the chair, spun his kicking and thrashing body, and finally pinned him to the floor.   Glass and flatware rained around his head. 

Trowa wanted to buck and knock the hands, real and imagined, off.  But Kader was too settled over him.   His shins crushed Trowa’s knees into the floor.  His hands pressed his face and shoulders down.  It would be _easy_ for him to break Trowa’s neck.  _And blow up the house before I’m cold._

Kader was silent.   Trowa, breathing heavily through his nose, wished he could turn his head and at least see the bastard’s expression. 

Kader huffed finally.  “Since you are so eager.” 

Trowa hissed as Kader pulled him up by the hair.   He stumbled after Kader’s hard pulls, around the broken glass, through the living room, and down a hall.  The hall was vaguely familiar from his brief run.  Kader yanked open a door at the end of it and threw him carelessly inside. 

Scalp aching but refusing to touch it, Trowa watched him close the door.  He tensed as Kader came close.  Kader circled him, slowly, one hand jumping from one shoulder to shoulder while the other unbuttoned his soiled shirt with disturbing ease. 

“I liked this shirt,” he said before tossing it aside.  Trowa grit his teeth and lifted his chin.  His legs tangled as he was suddenly turned.  Kader crushed him against his chest.  He pushed their lips, and hips, together.  Trowa shoved at the large chest, snarling against his mouth.  Kader smiled against him before biting hard at his lower lip.  Trowa clamped his mouth shut.  Kader’s tongue swept over the sting. 

Trowa’s arms dropped.  Locking his knees, he waited. 

Kader pulled back slowly, the grip he had on Trowa’s waist loosening.  He tilted Trowa’s chin and frowned when Trowa met his gaze briefly before staring at a spot of paint just behind the man’s ear.  The mobile hanger Trowa had started meticulously imagining as a distraction jolted out of place when Kader shoved him. 

“Get undressed,” he said, sitting on the bed.  Kader crossed his legs at the knee and folded his hands.  “Now.”   

Trowa stared until Kader arched his eyebrows.  Sneering, Trowa looked for something to focusing on as he yanked opened his coat.  There was an interesting shadow just to the bastard’s left.  Trowa stared at it as the coat landed on the floor and he toed out of his shoes.  He tried to analyze its soft edges as his hands went for his shirt buttons.  

Trowa had to force his hands to slow.  Otherwise, he was going to have buttons all over the floor and no thread to put them back.  He glared harder at the unusual shadow, irritated when the shape escaped him.  If Trowa could figure it out, he could make his hands stop shaking.  He would stop shaking and endure.  The fifth button slipped through his fingers.

“Do you need a hand,” Kader asked, grinning when Trowa’s eyes unwilling flicked to him.  The button loosened under Trowa’s trembling thumb.  “Four more.  And then you can rip the zipper and tear the elastic in your panties.”  

Trowa bit back a growl as he threw the shirt aside.  His hands continued to shake as they gripped the hem of his dress pants.

“That, first,” Kader said, gesturing at the black corset.  Trowa tensed.  “Turn around.  I want to see how it works.”  

Trowa turned stiffly, hands already curling back behind him.  He arched, practiced but reluctant, and felt for the first of the strips that locked him into it. 

“An interesting design,” Kader murmured as Trowa struggled.  “I’ve never seen one close like that.  And the boning different, to hide your shape rather than enhance it.  A custom design, then, although I think wrapping might have been easier.  To each his own.” 

Trowa grunted as the corset loosened.  Panting softly, he straightened a little and slid his hands down to the next, and then the next, and finally the last.   Kader made an appreciative noise behind him as the corset slipped from his back.  Trowa shuddered and held the stiff fabric against his chest. 

“Turn around.”

There had been another interesting shadow on the side of Kader’s head.  But if he didn’t time it right, Trowa would turn right into his gaze.  The shadow was on the left.  He’d be careful.  Stepping back, Trowa turned. 

Kader grinned when Trowa flinched back from his heavy stare.  “Leave that with your shirt.”  Trowa, cold and hard behind it, dug his fingers into the black cloth before releasing it.  The corset dropped like a stone.  “Mm you’re half-way there.” 

Trowa felt his face heat.  He ducked his head, hands dropping to the waist of his pants.  His fingers skipped and slid over the button and zipper before he paused.  Trowa could just let his pants drop and endure an irritating comment about nervousness, or he could pull them down like he usually did and let his breasts hang, and endure an entirely different comment.  He wasn’t sure which would be worse.  Finally he decided just to let them drop.  Trowa stepped out of them and shoved them away.

Kader’s eyes ran over him slowly.  “You never struck me as the panty-less type.” 

“I don’t wear panties,” Trowa snarled.

“I noticed,” he said.  Trowa clenched his fists.  _I will not cover myself, I will_ not _cover myself._  

He grew uncomfortably, embarrassingly, warm under the intense scrutiny.  Warm, and moist.  After a moment, Kader smirked and gestured him close.  He said nothing about Trowa’s pace or the way he flinched.  Kader simply uncrossed his legs when Trowa was close enough and pulled Trowa between them.  His hands fit far too nicely on his hips.  Trowa stared at the wall behind him while Kader’s thumbs rubbed over his hip bones.  He waited, waited for lips, or hands, moving down his stomach.  Moving _down_. 

He didn’t expect the light pulling.  

Trowa followed the hands, sitting on his heels between Kader’s legs.  He refused to look up at him.  Trowa mostly had control of his hands until he pushed aside the smooth gray cloth of Kader’s dress pants.  Kader was large, like the rest of him, and a slightly darker shade of brown in arousal.  Trowa smelled sweat and musk.  And then motor, cigarettes, cheap whiskey.  Trowa gripped his knees as the mix choked him.  Cold fingers danced up his stomach to his chest.  He flinched away from the garbled whisper that exhaled sour words against his cheek and left a dull, ancient pain on his ear. 

A hand settled on his head.  Trowa jolted.  Kader tilted his head at the brief unguarded expression Trowa knew he had turned up to him. Trowa ducked away from the hand reaching for his cheek.  Kader would forget _that_ momentary weakness.  He could make him forget. 

Kader moaned as Trowa wrapped his lips around the head of his erection.  Trowa grimaced but sucked, reminding himself there was no way Kader would ever be around motor oil and that he would never drink cheap alcohol.  He couldn’t be sure about the cigarettes.  Further down, Trowa was too close to the sweat and musk to think about cigarettes. 

“You’re better at this than I thought you’d be,” Kader said, setting his hands on his head.  Eyes closed, Trowa waited for the push.  There was only a light scratching.  Groaning in slight frustration (frustration, not confusion, and certainly not pleasure), Trowa lapped at the underside before bobbing slowly, letting the head touch the back his throat each time.  His fingers wrapped around the rest. 

His jaw ached, and soon his head as the light scratches became a solid grip.  Kader at least moved his hips slowly.  Trowa sucked and twisted his tongue.  Saliva dribbled down his chin.  If he was lucky, he would wipe it off soon. 

Trowa let out a strangled, muffled cry as Kader bent over him, pushing the head hard against his throat.  Trowa pushed at his knees.  Kader slid a hand down to his back to his rear, grabbed a handful of flesh, and pulled. 

“Lift your hips,” he said.

Kader stayed still as Trowa shifted.  Balanced on his knees, Trowa clutched his thighs, his nose as close to his pubic hair as possible.  Trowa grunted and gagged with each thrust.  He didn’t notice Kader’s hands until one of them stroked and peeled apart the lips of his vagina.  Trowa jolted and nearly choked himself.  

“Relax,” he said, nudging the entrance with his finger.  The tip pushed in carefully.  “You’re too tight.” 

Trowa tensed under the slow, constant burn of the pushing-retreating digit.  The burn sparked, searing up to his stomach before tapering off.  He let out a low, uncomfortable groan.  The finger pushed deeper, the second knuckle sinking in.  It curled, straightened, and curled again.  It brushed something and this time the heat was milder, almost pleasant, curling in his abdomen for a moment before disappearing.  The noise Trowa made was softer, longer, and a little less distressed. 

He had forgotten, though, what sound could do to flesh in his mouth. 

Kader growled as he came.  The fingers, both in his hair and in him, curled hard.  Trowa gagged on the warm, bitter fluid before managing to choke it down.  Semen trickled out of the corner of his mouth as he coughed.  Tears pricking at his eyes, Trowa sat back on his heels.  He looked away as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 

Kader’s fingers tightened suddenly around Trowa’s and pulled him forward.  Trowa gasped as he nearly fell into his lap.  He pulled on the grip and bit at the sticky fingers now cupping his chin.  A thumb swept across his swollen lips, smearing leftover semen across his mouth.  Trowa sneered.  _Disgusting perver_ _t._   Before Trowa even really thought about digging his teeth into that thumb, Kader was pulling him onto the bed. 

Trowa dropped whatever pretenses of disinterest or stoicism he had been clinging to when Kader dragged him across the sheets.  Trowa curled, and then almost immediately shifted his arms and legs.  There was no way to hide everything, but he wasn’t sure why he wanted to.  Kader had already seen everything, and he was not about to slither back across the bed in a fetal position.  He wanted to keep some of his dignity if he could.  Kader let him squirm until his pants were discarded somewhere over the side of the bed.  Then he settled near him.  He caught Trowa’s fist when it lashed out and unwound the tight ball Trowa had turned himself into slowly.  A knee nudged apart his legs. 

Trowa shut his eyes as Kader laid him out.  He didn’t want to see how his breasts flattened when he was on his back with his hands on either side of his head, or how wide his legs had to be to fit around Kader’s knees.  Trowa didn’t want to see a pink tongue sweep over white teeth.  He didn’t want to see the black eyes drifting over his open, ugly body.  Trowa twitched when a warm chest lay carefully over him.   Kader breathed against his neck.  He gripped his hips.  Trowa swallowed.  His toes curled. 

He screamed, a high and frightened sound, as he was split over Kader.  Or was it the thicker end of a bat?  Maybe the wrench needed to refill the suit’s ammo clip?  Drunk and impatient mercenaries.  Trowa twisted his shoulders and hips.  

“Would you relax?” Kader growled, catching Trowa’s knee when it rose to kick him off.

“Out, out!” 

“It’s barely in,” he said.  Kader pushed once with his hips.  Trowa thrashed and pushed at his chest. 

“Please!”

Kader’s hands slid from his hip and knee.  The hard, solid weight disappeared from between his legs.  Trowa scrambled back across the sheets.  He curled on his side, burying his face in the bedding, biting it when he felt a whimper clawing at his throat.  Trowa barely felt the bed dip when Kader moved; he barely heard the door open or Kader shoo Nizar away. 

He felt the touch on his side though and flinched.  “That is not food,” Kader said, oddly gentle.  He squirmed away from the hand.  Something too much like a sob slipped out as it took him firmly by the knee.  Kader rolled him over and pried apart his knees. Trowa shook his head, white lining his vision.  _No.  No, no, not again.  Please—_  

Trowa _squeaked_.  Kader chuckled against him before licking the sensitive folds again.  

“Wh-what are you—” Trowa tried, voice cracking.  Kader tongued at him, his arm pressing down on Trowa’s squirming hips.  A low, confused whine slid past Trowa’s lips as the pain started to dim.  And then the tip of Kader’s tongue slid in, and it was too hot and too wet and too thin to actually hurt.

None of them had ever—it was _revolting_ —he was panting because he was scared—and what the fuck did he just _do_?    

Trowa hips pushed against Kader’s arm at the sudden spike of pleasure.  Kader twisted his clit (and Trowa wasn’t sure when he had even learned that word) with his tongue before sucking gently again.  Trowa’s back lifted from the bed.  Kader caught his knee and hooked it over his shoulder. 

It was hot and wet and too disgusting to _think_ about, even though his hips bucked up.  There was a tongue pushing against his clit.  Trowa fisted the sheets by his head.  There was a nose was pressed against his sensitive sack, rubbing whenever Kader shifted.  Trowa twisted.  They would have never.  He was a freak, convenient but filthy.  Undeserving.  Lucky.  A toy, a hole.  They couldn’t even _look_ at those parts, and they would never— 

Kader’s hand wrapped around Trowa’s erection.  He stroked once while thrusting his tongue into him.  Trowa shattered. 

Somewhere past the pleasant that separated him from his body and old, muffled voices, Kader was speaking.  He was moving up Trowa’s body, coaxing him back onto his side.  Trowa shifted for him.  Kader stroked hair.  He stroked his cheeks and the wet trails that curled down them when he pushed in again.  Trowa tumbled back into himself.  He watched his hands dig into the bed, and saw his thigh trembling where it was draped over Kader’s arm.  Kader’s hand slid from beneath his waist and grab his flagging erection.  Kader rolled his hips, and Trowa hissed.  He stroked, and Trowa moaned. 

Behind him, Kader scraped his teeth against his ear.  Trowa shifted, stilling when Kader growled.  But his movements were slow: roll, pause, stroke, roll.  Trowa moaned softly.  After a couple of rolls, he retracted his nails from the bedding.   After almost a minute, he pushed back. 

Kader’s grip tightened, pulling Trowa hard against his chest.  His snapped his hips forward.  Trowa cursed, but he had been inside too long for it to hurt.  

“Much better,” Kader groaned into his ear.  With a bite that made Trowa gasp, he started to thrust. 

Trowa grunted and hissed with the faster rhythm.  The noises made Kader chuckled.  He rotated his hips, thrusting in at an angle that had Trowa gasping swears.   After a few thrusts, he could gasp.  Cheek pressed into the mattress, Trowa panted.  The hard head pounded against his center.  And he was rocking clumsily with it.  Encouraging him.  Trowa buried his face in the sheets, his fingers wound so tightly in it he might tear it. 

Trowa felt.  He felt his pulse pounding in his head to the beat of Kader’s thrusts.  He felt the gasps and moans building and bursting from his throat.  He felt his breasts rise and fall.  Every drop of arousal, every bed of precum, that slithered between his thighs.  Every crease and ridge on Kader’s hand as he stroked Trowa hard and twisted. 

The world went white as he came, his body drowning in sensation and heat.  And for once, he was not afraid of the crushing rush.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, I really think that I should not go back and reread my own things. I'm really critical of myself. Then again, my style's changed so much that I kind of feel I have to go back and at least make sure everything is somewhat cohesive. 
> 
> Getting to the point where I'm wondering why I do this, other than the fact that I still love it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trowa suffers the second day of the arrangement (and Ahsim wonder why she even attempts sex scenes in the first place).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains depictions of the explicit abuse of a minor. If you do not want to read this, please skip the entire first section (marked by *-----*-----*).
> 
> Further warnings: swearing, blood, exploitative sex, mentions of abuse

 

“Oy, Nameless!” 

The bolt popped out of the wrench with a screech and clattered across the scaffolding floor.  He scrambled after it.  When he had it in hand, he felt the threading carefully.  After stripping the screw on the leg, he couldn’t afford to mess up another piece of hardware. 

“I know you hear me,” the mechanic—he thought the name was “Dex”—called.  He glanced over his shoulder, determined he was high enough to safely ignore him, and went back to his bolts. “Little piece of shit.” 

“Try his name next time.”  Great.  There were two of them.  Now they would never leave. 

“Does he look like a Chink to you?” 

“ ‘Nanashi’s’ Japanese, not Chinese.” 

“Chink, Jap, Gook.  They’re all a bunch of squinty-eyed fucks,” Dex said.  He frowned as he worked the bolt.  The first group of mercenaries never cursed this much, outside of battle anyway.  “And he ain’t one of them.” 

“The kid answers to it—” 

“And half a dozen others—”                        

He set the next bolt down by his knee.  Perhaps he should have been more insistent on “Nanashi.”  But he couldn’t take any chances.  He hadn’t been there long enough for chances.  They were itching for a reason to dump him somewhere.  Even the leader, who was the most likely to at least grumble out some appreciation.   No one trusted a child that skilled with a wrench and a gun.  No one liked being outdone by a kid.  Pickiness could very easily be seen as insubordination, and that was a good excuse to throw him in the nearest orphanage.  Or shallow ditch. 

He wasn’t particularly attached to the name anyway.  Captain had given it to him, begrudgingly, almost as an afterthought when they picked him up staggering along the road.  It hadn’t become a title, a necessity, until after it became clear that he would be with them for a lot longer than a few meals.  He gradually grew accustomed to the strange group of sounds, and even came to like some of the instances and tones he heard it in.  But he never thought about himself as “Nanashi.”  He never really thought about himself as anything other than a pronoun.  Sometimes as a very confused pronoun.  People expected names, though.  “Nanashi” was at least convenient and familiar.  

He used to try to find his name.  During the most menial jobs and the worst sleeplessness, he would dig in his few, brief pieces of memory.  It was like drilling through granite with a toothpick.  Once, he thought he found something, but then the oil line on the suit arm had ruptured.  Whatever it was was gone by the time he finished cleaning his face.  The ache in his chest had surprised him.  But he solved that.  No more trying, no more pain—just a deep sense of disappointment and then emptiness.     

“—at least don’t take it so literally.” 

“Do I look like a Chink to you?  Nameless!” 

He didn’t look back this time, twisting the bolt off the rest of the way with his fingers.  After all, he _preferred_ “Nanashi.”  Or “Kid.”  Even “Green eyes” and “You” were higher up on the list than that. 

“Nanashi,” the other called.  He glanced over his shoulder.  Another mechanic, this one specialized in the software.  He hadn’t spent enough time working with that part of the suits yet to guess at his name.  “See?” 

“Just get the little shit down here for dinner.”   

He made a face and turned back to the bolts.  “Not hungry.” 

“That was your excuse yesterday!” 

What was he complaining about?  Now there would be more to go around. 

“You’re not going to finish that before dinner’s over,” Software explained.  _Exactly._   “Come down, Nanashi, and finish later.” 

“Needs to get done.  Not hungry.”  

“Who cares if you’re not hungry?  Get down here.  You’re a freaking skeleton.  You expect us to pull your weight forever?” 

He twisted and dropped the next bolt.  It chinked with a stubborn finality.   

“Whatever.  I hope the little shit starves.” 

Not likely.  He and the cook, a barrel of a man with the same level of combat skill as the wrench, had an understanding.   The cook saved him whatever nonmeat things he had (usually a few pieces of bread and beans, sometimes some rice, vegetables and cheese if he was lucky) and he weaseled his way into supply trips.  As long as the store keeps and townswomen didn’t realize he was a mercenary, they parted with more, rarer food stuffs whenever they saw him.  Or at the very least they charged a little less.  Out of pity, probably.   

He knew it was a ridiculous amount of work, worming his way into the supply trips, and that it was work that didn’t make the other mercenaries any keener on keeping him.  The trips were popular.  They wanted…to do whatever they couldn’t do here, whenever they had the chance.  But the cook, and the captain, liked the extras.  So he always managed to ease someone out.  Carefully.  

Of course, he didn’t particularly care if any of them liked him.  They just had to keep him.  The captain made the decisions.  The captain liked the extras.  And it wasn’t like the mercenaries didn’t like them either.  Just not when it was their turn to wait.  If he could work out the same deal as before— 

But no.  There was no one he trusted enough to swap food with.  Bryan had been an exception.  If he thought refusing meat was strange, it wasn’t strange enough to keep him from trading all his nonmeat for meat.  He couldn’t trust these mercenaries (except for the cook, who finally just started shrugging) for that same understanding.  If he had to work to not eat it, then he would work.  And he was _not_ going to eat it.  It always reeked of fire, smoke, and burned flesh.  Never eat it.  Never, ever.  He would starve first. 

He rubbed absently at his back.  He had almost found the source of that decision in his dreams once, too.  Lost it to an electric shock. 

With the last of the bolts out, mentally catalogued and circling his legs, he pulled off the gun’s main panel.  The clip was empty.  He frowned.  They hadn’t had a fight in days.  It shouldn’t be empty.  It wasn’t his suit, so he wasn’t sure what happened, but he suspected small rodents were involved.  

At least they had extra clips.  He had been surprised at the number they had: twice what the other group had. 

He didn’t know why he continued to compare this group with the first one.  There was no point, seeing as they were dead.  The twinge in his chest was strange too.  It hadn’t started to fade yet, but he didn’t doubt it would.     

Mercenaries always needed extra clips.  But this group carried extra ones because these mercenaries were easily bored, and their boredom led to stupid, usually shooting-related activities.  It was a useful bit of information he had overheard on one of the first supply trips.  He liked useful bits of information.  The first mercenaries, among everything else they taught him to like and appreciate (there was that twinge again), encouraged his interest in overhearing, processing, storing, and retrieving useful bits on information.  And of course the silence.  

He _really_ liked silence.  Being able just to stand the right way and virtually disappear, that was thrilling.  And being a child only made it easier.  He faded in and out, turned big eyes on townswomen who fawned over him one minute and then disappearing to snoop on them in the next.  It was exciting, and practical. 

He never would have found out about periods otherwise. 

It was apparently a big deal for girls; the mother he had overheard had burst into the store and dragged several women off into the corner to “share the good news.”  She, the mother’s daughter, was a little young: ten, his own age, if he had been aged right (Captain swore he was.  Adam was the best medic the first mercenaries, and he, could ask for).  But some girls were “early bloomers.”  He still wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but that didn’t matter.  Her detailed, disgustingly detailed, explanation of the symptoms did.  

No tenderness of the breasts (which he knew, thanks to these mercenaries, were some hidden part of his chest that would swell to the size of melons someday).  No cramps (which sounded like a stomach ache, just lower).  No changes in attitude or appetite (which better not mean he would suddenly develop uncontrollable urges for beef and pork).  And certainly no bleeding.   

He frowned, not sure if the absence of all that meant anything other than not being “an early bloomer.”  Of course, the mother’s daughter probably didn’t have a penis too.  That probably changed things.  But maybe it didn’t.  Maybe, maybe she did.  But he didn’t know.  

He sighed.  Adam would have known.  He could have asked him.  Adam knew about him.  Adam didn’t like to talk about it and told him to keep it to himself.   But Adam at least knew and he would have answered his questions.  If he didn’t know the answer, he would have gotten permission from Captain to find them.              

Not this medic, who looked at him like an intrusion _and_ an experiment.  He didn’t trust this medic.  He wasn’t going to ask or tell him anything. 

He checked his work twice before confirming that yes, the maintenance was done and yes, he had to get down and get a new clip.  Stretching, he stood, careful not to upset his meticulous bolt catalogue, and started climbing down.   He was a little more careful than he had been going up.  He hadn’t had greasy fingers then.  It didn’t mind his pace.  The suits never did.  He patted the cool metal when he touched the ground.

Dinner wouldn’t last too much longer.  He wanted to be back up with the clip, where he could safely ignore everyone, as quickly as possible.  He hurried to the supply crates and flipped open the marked lid.

Bolts.  Lots of bolts.  Screws.  Metal panels.  He looked from the contents to the lid before flipping open the crate next to it.  Wiring. 

Someone had mislabeled, or misplaced, everything.  Again.  _I am not fixing this—not unless the captain orders me to._  

“Not going to find any dinner in there, Nameless,” Dex—and it was staying as “Dex,” right or not—said.  He wore one of his usual lop-sided smiles and slowly swung an almost-empty bottle at his side.  “But if you’re nice.” 

He followed the lazy arc of the bottle with his eyes.  When did they get alcohol?  More importantly, what did they sacrifice from their list of oh-so-needed equipment and supplies to get it?  Alcohol, he had learned, was expensive.  Even the cheap stuff.  And Dex was most certainly drinking cheap.   He could smell it on Dex’s breath.  He frowned.  If they had alcohol…  He looked at the crates.  It looked like they had enough of the suit supplies, mislabeled as they were.  _If we have supplies_ and _alcohol_ … 

Maybe the cook wouldn’t have much to give him after all.  

Exactly what he _didn’t_ feel like thinking about.  Dex blinked at the small frowned he turned on him.  Huffing quietly, he turned his back on him and went back to rooting through the crates.  

He expected Dex to leave.  Well, to curse and then leave.  Dex _always_ cursed and left, because he wasn’t important enough (yet) to warrant more than a tongue lashing.  So when a large palm slammed between his shoulder blades, thrusting him over the crate, he was genuinely surprised.  The hard plastic dug into his stomach.  He ignored it, pushing himself up and turning.   

Dex sneered.  “Arrogant piece of shit.” 

It was a fairly large bottle, but Dex wasn’t swaying.  He wasn’t slurring, either, which meant he wasn’t drunk, or at least not the falling-down, easily-avoidable drunk he had seen them reach before.  He watched Dex closely, inching slowly to the corner of the crate.

“Try to do something nice for your skinny, ungrateful little ass—” 

If he could get the crate between them, he could make a run for it. 

“—teach you your place.” 

The words were barely out of Dex’s mouth before his look softened into something more contemplative but distinctly foreign on his rough features.  Dex’s eyes roamed over him: over his shoulders rolled protectively forward against this new expression; over his legs, bent lightly at the knee and ankle, ready and itching to run; over his face which he could feel paling. 

When Dex’s fingers twitched and a pink tongue swept over his lips, he bolted. 

He spun away from the first lunging hand, putting the crate’s corner between them.  The second managed to slip a finger into the back of his shirt.  He dropped to the ground, dug in with his toes, and exploded to the side.  He just had to get back to the suit.  There was no way Dex could climb— 

Pain exploded from his temple, washing over him in a white wave.  He floated, held up by the large hand crushing his wrist.  He was dimly aware, as Dex yanked him up and around, that he’d been hit with the bottle.  It must have broken.  He could smell the alcohol on his skin, in his hair.  Right near his ear. 

No.  Wait.  That was Dex’s breath. 

He grunted as he hit a crate.  _Get up, get up._ His head was spinning.  His arms didn’t want to move.  They crumpled beneath his chest as he tried to push himself up.  A hand slipped between his chest and the plastic.  He twisted and kicked as the fingers fumbled with his pants. 

His foot connected with something.  He kept kicking at it.  Dex snarled. “Fuck!  Little bitch.” 

Dex lay over him, crushing his ribs into the crate.  He clawed at the edge.  Dex forced his legs apart, holding them open with his thighs.  He stopped breathing when Dex got his fly opened. 

He screamed. 

Dex capped his mouth with one hand.  The other pushed down his pants.  He bit the hand hard.  Dex cursed, but still tugged on his underwear.  He tossed his head, digging his teeth into the skin until he tasted blood.  Dex howled.  The hands disappeared—and a knee slammed into him.  His mouth rounded into a silent scream.  It slammed again, pushing testicles up and _in_.  He sobbed. 

Dex stayed for a moment, rubbing slowly with his knee.  And then suddently, the weight and pressure were gone.  He sank boneless and throbbing to the ground.

 “Shit.  Oh shit—” 

Dex dropped by his side.  He screeched as Dex pried his shaking fingers away from his legs.  Dex didn’t even notice him clawing at him as he spread him open. 

There were footsteps.  Someone cursed.  “What the hell is going on?” 

He realized he never should have screamed.  Dex threw closed his legs and scrambled to his feet.  He should have been quiet.  Half a dozen men, medic and captain included, wouldn’t be staring at him if he had been quiet.  The captain stared at him, not Dex, _him_ , as Dex stumbled through a buzzing explanation.  Swallowing, hr inched his hand to his pants.  The captain’s eyes narrowed.  He pushed past Dex.  He scrambled back, tugging at his pants.  Why couldn’t he get them up faster?  The captain was an arm’s length away.  He caught him by the ankle and pulled.  His pants scratched down the backs of his thighs.  

Never scream.  Not again.  But begging—if he was lucky, maybe it would loosen the captain’s grip.  He couldn’t hear his own voice over the thundering in his ear.  But he felt the tips of his hair scrap his cheek as he shook his head, and he felt his legs bruise as the captain held tighter and pulled harder. 

“Enough.”

The words didn’t quite match his lips.  

*-----*-----* 

“I said, enough.  Damn it.  If you kick me again.”  

Trowa lunged forward with a scream.  The metal bar that had somehow ended up in his bed collided with his stomach, cutting the sound short.  Then the bar was a snake, curling around his waist.  He screamed without breath.  More of the twisting bars leapt up out of the slick sheets.  They wound around his thrashing body, grinding bones into each other as they tightened. 

He bucked, lungs burning for air.  The heavy constraints shifted and pressed him into the mattress.  

“And after all that.  Where do you get your energy?” 

Trowa sobbed around a mouthful of sheet.  His ribs were going to collapse.  The captain was too heavy.  Trowa squirmed, digging with his toes and knees.  Thick legs wrapped around his knees.  Trowa screamed as a half-hard erection pressed against his rear.  

The large hand that capped his mouth was finely calloused: probably from guns, knives, maybe even a sword.  Gentleman weapons.  _Noble_ weapons.   Filed nails, free of dirt and grease, topped long fingers that smelled mostly of ink, soap, and quality food and drink.

And the hand was brown. 

Trowa was calm for the few seconds it took him to not only remember _why_ he was in Kader’s bed—the bastard actually chuckled when he felt Trowa’s cheeks warm—and that he could only be ten years old again in his sleep, but that he also tended to _talk_ in his sleep.  What he said, if he actually said anything, didn’t matter.  He had thrashed and screamed, probably begged, in his arms. 

Bile tickled the back of his throat.  Trowa twisted, stomach churning.  Kader noticed _something_ , perhaps the cold sweat beading on his forehead and neck or the way Trowa kept swallowing, because he sat back.  He pulled Trowa up with him and loosened his grip around Trowa’s stomach. He grunted as Trowa elbowed his way out of his arms. 

His nightmare had shifted them up the bed.  A very good thing, he realized, since his knees wobbled and collapsed the moment Trowa put weight on them.  Trowa caught himself on the bedpost.  The drop did much more than just stretch his arms to pain and churn his stomach.  Trowa shuddered as something warm and sticky started dribbling down his legs.  

Now he was really going to be sick. 

Kader sighed.  He lifted him from under the arms.  Trowa scratched at his hands.  He hissed and let Trowa stumble upright and across the room.  Trowa kept one arm tight around his heaving stomach and the other pressed to whatever wall was nearest. 

Trowa didn’t need the call of “on the right.”  There were only a few doors in the hallway, and only one was opened.   He didn’t bother with the lights.  Trowa slid to his knees in front of the toilet and retched.  A strand of something (he would not think of _what_ ) clung to his lips.    

Someone sighed behind him.  Trowa tensed, fingers tight around the porcelain.  It wasn’t the most dignified position: naked, heaving, head just far enough out of the toilet to keep his hair stomach acid-free.  He still, however, had a decent angle to kick at Kader if he dared to come near him.  He didn’t.  There were no hands in his hair or on his back.  No voice, low and chuckling, trying to coax him to relax.  Which was good for Kader because Trowa wasn’t about to be treated like a first date who couldn’t hold her liquor.  _Fine.  He gets to keep his shins._  

Trowa lifted his head slightly and glanced at the door.  Nizar ran a hand over his face before walking away.  Trowa groaned.  He settled his cheek on his forearm.  _Great_. 

His legs didn’t wobble nearly as much this time when he stood, flushed, and staggered to the sink.  The sink was just as luxurious and artificial as the rest of the apartment, but the water was good and cold.  Trowa sighed as it ran over his hands and wrists.  He bent and splashed his face before ducking further and pressing his lips to the cold stream.  He would never think of drinking from the faucet at home, or at anyone else’s for that matter, but Kader wasn’t anyone.  He would have to live with lapse in manners.  

Water settling his stomach, Trowa straightened.  There was enough light from the half coming in that he could see his reflection unfortunately well.  He didn’t look too terrible.  No major bruises, and no blood, which was a nice change.  An oddly dark patch of skin stood out on his neck.  It stung when he touched it.  Trowa sighed.  At least it was far enough down that his shirt collar would cover it.  And scratch constantly.  Of course, that might be a welcome distraction from the dull, constant ache between his thighs.   _Work’s going to be fun._  

Trowa shifted and grimaced.  It was his first time on a motorcycle all over again.  Of course, he hadn’t really had breasts then, and he hadn’t had breasts when—Trowa shook his head.  He’d been able to walk upright at least.  And he could ignore the breasts.  It wasn’t like they actually hurt.  He hadn’t put the corset on yet, but broken ribs, gun wounds, attempted suicide, those had to hurt more than sex-sore breasts.  

_Maybe I should shot myself then.  Give myself a real distraction._  

“You know,” Kader said when Trowa returned to the bedroom.  He was balanced on an elbow, cheek on his fist, a bed sheet just over his hips.  “I’ve been cursed at and sobbed at.  Some have begged for more, others for less.  I even had one young lady lunge at me with a letter opener.  But you might be the first who actually vomited from sleeping with me.”

Trowa opened his mouth and then snapped it closed.  As if Kader had _anything_ to do with _that_ display.  But Trowa wasn’t going to give him any new opportunities to wriggle into his life.  He would rather have Kader’s arrogance than his curiosity.  

Kader frowned and slid his fingers through his tousled black hair.  Leaning over, he clicked off the bedside lamp.  Patting the space beside him once, Kader settled back onto his side.  When Trowa didn’t move, he opened his eyes and lifted his head from his arm.  

“Don’t tell me you plan on sleeping in the doorway,” he said. 

“No.” 

“Then come to bed.” 

Not likely.  “I have to work.” 

“Not at midnight, you don’t.  Now come here.” 

“I have to work.” 

Kader sighed.  “Your dedication shames me.”  Trowa grit his teeth as he turned the light back on and sat up.  “But wouldn’t it be a little unfair to ask Nizar to drive you in now?”

 Trowa had no intention of getting anywhere near that truck. “Taxis run at all hours.”

“I’d never ask for such an unnecessary waste of money,” he said.  Kader’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.  “Nizar will take you back.  In the morning.” 

Trowa eyed the clothes still crumpled a few feet from the bed.  How fast would he have to be to get them, get dressed, and run out before Kader could tackled him?  _Too fast._ And there was no way he was walking out naked.  Not that Kader would let him, and that would probably be more painful than just sulking back to bed.  

Kader shifted, making Trowa tense.  He reached over for the alarm clock on the side table and grumbled as he played with it.  Trowa almost jumped when Kader set it down with a loud thunk. 

“There.  Five-thirty.  And I promise not to turn it off.  Now come here.” 

Trowa insisted to himself that he was going back because his knees were starting to shake and the last thing that he wanted was to be carried.  Lying on his side near the edge of the bed, Trowa glared at the pile of clothes on the floor.  The wrinkles would be hard to explain.    

Kader turned off the light.   Out of the darkness, his arm wrapped around Trowa’s stomach.  Trowa growled, clawing at it when it started to pull him back carefully.  Too carefully, too mindful of the former nausea.  Kader continued to pull until Trowa’s back was flush against his chest, and then he had the audacity to start drawing light circles on his stomach.  

Trowa twisted.  “I—” 

“Yes.  Now go to sleep.” 

Trowa wanted to stay awake just to spite him and his presumptuous, deceitful touch. His fingers moved constantly: up his stomach, down his side, over his hips.  Slow.  Intimate.  Soothing.  Trowa dug his nails into his palm, but the need for sleep continued to trail after the gentle stroking.  He knew he shouldn’t sleep.  Trowa had no idea what he would dream about this time, or what secrets would slip out from his normally tight grip.  But his body ached, and the touch, distasteful as it was, was uncommonly, disarmingly gentle.  Considerate actually.  Disgustingly so.

The alarm didn’t wake him.  Lips did, moist and slightly parted, pressing on his back.  They moved slowly along Trowa’s skin.  Trowa groaned around the pillow he had burrowed into at some point.  Brow furrowing, he slid his arms beneath his chest.  Kader, mouth never abandoning his skin, took hold of Trowa’s wrists before he could push himself up.  Trowa shivered and melted into the bedding when Kader’s tongue cut random, wet paths across his shoulders and over his spine.   The tongue tickled down to his waist, then back up.  It shifted over a little and slid down again.  In far too straight a line.  

“Off,” Trowa hissed finally, wide awake.  He pulled on the hands holding his wrists out. 

“Where did you get these,” Kader asked against Trowa’s scarred skin, holding down Trowa’s squirming hips with his chest.  “They can’t all be battle scars.” 

“Of course they can.” 

“You were too good for this many.”  Kader grunted as Trowa caught him in the chin with his hip.   “And you’re far too sensitive over them.”

He wasn’t sensitive.  It was dead skin.  There was nothing to be sensitive over.  “I don’t appreciate people licking me in my sleep.”

“Only when you’re awake, you don’t,” he said.  The alarm buzzing drowned out Trowa’s snarl.  They listened to the sound for a moment before Kader slid carefully off of him.  Kader had to turn to reach the alarm clock, and so he missed the confusion and fear flicking briefly across Trowa’s face.   “And since now you do have to go to work, I can’t teach you to appreciate the attention until tonight.” 

Kader smiled at Trowa’s blank, and then black, expression.

“I’m taking a shower.” 

Trowa slipped out of bed and out of the room faster than necessary.  Kader didn’t try to stop him.  He didn’t comment.  He didn’t even try the bathroom door, which Trowa locked.  That didn’t stop Trowa from looking over his shoulder as he stepped into the shower. 

He tried not to think about how Catherine’s miniscule shower, or his own average one, could fit comfortably in the glass-and-ceramic box.   He tried not to think about the reason behind having such a large shower, or the waist-high metal bar, and the overhead metal bar.  Trowa glanced at the lock again.  Kader probably had a key.  Trowa’s skin eventually turned red from the heat, and the door stayed closed. 

Trowa leaned against the wall, shivering.  None of it made sense.  At all.  Period.  Which bothered him.  The alley had made sense.  Botched inside job.  A warning to the organization.  A lesson for the operative.  He understood that.  Trowa could even see some reasoning in the exploitation.  He was a Preventer.  There was all sorts of information he had acces to (none of which Kader asked for, which made no sense and therefore bothered him).  And even if Trowa wouldn’t talk, Kader could at least ensure his silence with force, imprisonment, or the threat of exposure.   That made sense.  He understood it.  

What didn’t make sense—what Trowa didn’t understand—was the pretense of concern and consideration.  Kader didn’t gain anything by providing Trowa with food he could actually eat.  He didn’t gain anything by accommodating, or at least attempting to, Trowa’s sexually-difficult body.  Kader didn’t get anything with comfort. 

And there _had_ been comfort.  There had to have been.  He would not have slept that well otherwise.  Trowa slid down the shower wall, arms tight over his waist.  He wasn’t sure how he felt about the attention to food or the restraint.  But Trowa knew the feeling was something other than anger, frustration, fear, or some other wild emotion.  Trowa had slept.  A heavy, dreamless sleep.  A Catherine’s-couch, lion-cage sleep.  He only slept like that when he was very comfortable with his surroundings.  Comfortable and safe.

That made the least sense of all.  

The water was much cooler when Trowa finally gave up with a curse.  He wasn’t going to understand why Kader insisted on making him feel comfortable and safe, no matter how fleetingly—and it _had_ to be fleeting, a momentary lapse of some other baser instinct, a brief flicker of conscience he would not see again.  Standing carefully with the help of one of the conspicuous bars, Trowa actually showered.  

He hesitated only once, hands twitching on his upper thighs.  He had never actually cleaned up afterwards before; the mercenaries never said, or showed, that it was necessary _._ They never really gave him the time.  Trowa eyed the soap and the detachable shower head.  He flinched.  _I’ll be fine without it._   

“I thought you might have drowned,” Kader said when Trowa returned.  Wearing loose jeans, he looked at Trowa, wrapped in a large towel, and chuckled.   “Your clothes will be done shortly.” 

Trowa blinked. “Done what?” 

“Being ironed.  You can’t go to work in something that’s been on the floor all night.” 

Trowa frowned.  Kader made no sense at all. 

Nizar apparently agreed with him.  He sneered at Trowa over Kader’s shoulder when he returned with the pressed uniformed. Trowa tilted his head slightly as Kader asked something in what was probably their native language.  He wondered if it was why Nizar was wearing a full-suit already.  Nizar frowned and thrust Trowa’s uniform into Kader’s hands.  Kader watched him leave for a moment.  He passes Trowa his clothes and followed.  He actually closed the door behind him. 

Trowa stared, towel around his shoulders and clothes in hands, until a cool drop of water from his hair slithered down the back of his neck.  He shivered, snarled, and tossed the clothes on the bed.  He yanked the towel over his body and hair; his skin was a dull pink when he finally started to dress.  The corset was easier to get on then he thought, but Trowa had to hold onto the bedpost afterwards and catch his breath.  He considered loosening it for a moment.  

“Like hell.”  

Trowa buttoned his shirt.  Two of the buttons wobbled between his fingers.  He’d have to be more careful.  There would be no replacements until he got home.  He wasn’t sure how many buttons he actually had at home, but he didn’t think it was much more than a few. 

There was no gun holster on the dresser this time.  Trowa did find a comb, though, and ran it through his hair. It was another breach of manners that, under normal circumstances, he would never think of making.  But these weren’t normal circumstances.  Kader could deal with it.  He’d have to wait until he got to work to shape his hair; he kept a small jar in his desk.  The light brush of hair on his neck made him shiver. 

After giving himself one more look over, to make sure there were no real glaring differences that would led to questions at the office, Trowa opened the door.  Kader wasn’t waiting in the hall, like he had been expecting.  Trowa could hear him, though.  He crept towards the sound, pressed close to the wall out of habit. 

“He can walk,” Nizar spat when Trowa was just outside the living room.  The scrap of metal on metal as he talked.  They were probably in the kitchen. 

“He’ll either freeze or get run over.” 

“Your point?” 

“Aside from the unattractive attention a dead body in this neighborhood will bring to our unlisted address,” Kader asked.  Nizar grunted and slammed something down on something else.  “He’ll know.  Even if he doesn’t come back—and I assure you, he is coming back—one time will be enough.  He’ll know where we are, and then maybe he’ll talk.  Which is exactly what you don’t want.” 

Trowa swore that he could heard Nizar grinding his teeth.  “Then I will put a bullet through his through his head.  I’m not driving him.” 

The kitchen went silent, except for the running of water and the gentle scrap of a pan.  Then Trowa heard a sigh, and it was so shockingly plaintive that he couldn’t stop himself from poking his head around the doorway.  Kader’s shoulders had drooped.    

“This is a game to you,” Kader said.  Nizar turned his head slightly.  “It must be since you know how much I, I loathe the distance birthplace has forced between us.  Why do you insist on making me command you?  Or,” and here Kader paused, his lips pursed around a new thought.  “Or is this some new lesson?  My final lesson, perhaps?  Hardening my heart against my beloved teach to make me the best possible ruler?”

There was a warmth to Kader’s face.  It was almost childlike.  And underneath that glowing adoration, there was such pathetic hurt that if Trowa wasn’t looking at it, he would have never thought it possible.  But underneath that there was something hard and cruel: mockery in the sadly-arched eyebrows and downturned mouth.  

Nizar wasn’t fooled in the slightest. 

“Someday, I will carve out those eyes of yours, and then we’ll see how your expressions suffer for it.” 

Kader’s lips curled.  “I will be all the more pathetic for it,” he said.   Nizar shook his head once before sighing. 

“Where did I put the blindfold?” 

Kader took Nizar’s place at the skillet once the man had wandered off.  He glanced briefly over his shoulder and gestured Trowa in with his head.  Trowa frowned.  He wasn’t going to skulk back around the corner like he was guilty of something, but that didn’t mean he was going to come any closer either. 

“Do not give him a reason to forget the blindfold.  He will improvise,” Kader warned.  “Besides, you haven’t eaten since yesterday.”     

Trowa wouldn’t be able to explain away concussion or facial bruising..  Grinding his teeth, Trowa came and sat down at the table. 

Trowa had to admit, after Kader set a plate of pancakes down in front of him, that food was exactly he needed after yesterday.  He wasn’t going to admit that it was good, though, even if though it was.  When Nizar came back with the blindfold and a few folders, though, and looked at Trowa with first surprise and then loathing, Trowa couldn’t stop himself from smirking around his fork.  He had the distinct impression that he was eating the man’s breakfast.

Muttering under his breath, Nizar tossed the folders at Kader.  Kader glanced at them over the rim of his mug.  He opened the first and scanned the report.  Or at least Trowa that it was a report; he couldn’t understand the writing at all. Kader turned to Nizar, who had gone back to the counter.  Trowa leaned forward a bit. 

Kader was from somewhere in the Middle East.  Trowa knew that much from the profile.  He wasn’t exactly sure where, not that it mattered; Trowa couldn’t read or speak Arabic, or Farsi, or whatever else they might speak in that part of the world that wasn’t English or French.  There were enough numbers on the pages in the file, though—multiple digit numbers—that Trowa suspected they were either supplies or statistics.  Possibly populations. 

Kader’s large hand stretched over the page suddenly.  “I wouldn’t linger,” he said with a faint smile.  “Nizar tells me that the roads are not at their best this morning.” 

Nizar gave Trowa a look over his coffee that suggested he would love to hit black ice and see Trowa fly through the window shield.  Trowa ate the rest of his pancakes slowly. 

The last piece of pancake was barely in Trowa’s mouth when the blindfold stretched over his eyes from behind.  Trowa pushed back from the table, fork clattering to the floor as he lunged from Nizar’s hands.  When he found them tying the thick silk at the back of his skull, Trowa scratched and clawed until he got a wrist between his fingers.  Nizar cursed as he twisted. 

Kader chuckled.  “Next time, let him finish first.” 

Kader was no better, though.  He caught Trowa by the arm when he tried to yank the cloth off.  He pulled Trowa out of the chair easily.  Trowa twisted in his grip, growling as Kader’s grip on his waist and arm tightened.  Kader pulled him close.  Warm breath ghosted across his neck.  For a moment, Trowa felt the rough bite of frozen asphalt.  Kader’s lips caressed the shell of his ear.  Trowa’s throat tightened as they parted.  

“Be good,” he breathed in Trowa’s ear.  “I’ll see you later tonight.”

Trowa realized, as Nizar dragged him away, that he probably would have preferred if Kader had strangled him again.

*-----*-----*

“There you are.  I was beginning to worry.” 

Kader didn’t look particularly worried, leaning back at the dinette with coat and tie once again tossed over the back of a chair.  He had a wine glass and spun it slowly between his fingers with the precision of something extremely irritated. 

“Blame him,” Nizar sneered as he snatched up the wrinkled coat.  For a moment, Trowa wished he hadn’t insisted getting the blindfold removed so quickly.  He would have liked to strangle the man with it. 

Kader, eyebrow arched, looked from one to the other.  The intense gaze lingered on Trowa.  It raised the hair on his neck.  Grinding his teeth, Trowa shrugged, hoping it looked as casual as he wanted.

“Work to do.” 

Kader shook his head after a moment. “Once again, your dedication shames me—” 

Trowa wouldn’t call it “dedication” but rather an unusual fascination with a series of distracting phone calls.  It was, after all, very difficult to make a mind that was focused on exploitative sex, and the irritatingly mixed feelings that came with it, do constructive, distracting work.  So he instead Trowa had focused on Quatre’s complaints about the mundane paperwork he had been called in on a Saturday for.  And then around lunch, he had focused on Duo’s slightly rambling gossip.  He actually got some work done during that; it was oddly comforting and stabilizing to listen to him chatter

Heero’s phone call had not been as helpful.  He had called after lunch, and the call itself had been almost entirely silent, with the exception of pleasantries and Heero reminding him that he did have the car and more than enough free time to pick Trowa up.  Trowa had watched his phone, worrying at his cheek with his teeth, long after Heero grumbled about Duo and snow shovels and excused himself.     

All and all, Trowa had gotten very little work done when he should have.  He had stayed well past seven to finish his usual load. 

“—But I really must insist that this doesn’t become a habit.  Dedication is a noble thing, but not at the expense of your health.”  Kader’s lips curled as he spoke.  Trowa frowned.  It wasn’t his health Kader was concerned about.  “Now come and eat.”  

Trowa, hoping to prolong a repeat of last night for as long as possible, sat stiffly beside him.  Once again, anything and everything even remotely meat-related was set far away from his plate.   

He wrinkled his nose at the sweet, juicy perfume of fruit and the hearty, grainy one of bread.  Trowa’s stomach rumbled.  Grinding his teeth, he thought about protocol, gun maintenance, front-line first aid, slaughter houses—anything to keep himself from _wanting_ the things Kader set in front of him. 

But he hadn’t made it out of the office for lunch; Duo had been too engrossed in some story he overheard at the supermarket to let Trowa go.  He was starving.  Sighing softly, Trowa reached for a nearby plate of vegetables, ignoring the curious bowl of paste beside it.  Kader nudged a bowl of fruit towards him.  Trowa reached over it and took a piece of bread.  

They ate in a silence that was less awkward than he expected it to be.  Or preferred.  Trowa was starting his third piece of bread, and his first serving of fruit after having ignored two different dishes Kader had pushed on him, when Kader spoke. 

“I suppose it’s different than you expected,” he said, not looking up from the meat he was cutting.  Trowa couldn’t stop himself from glancing at him, an eyebrow raised.  Of course it was.  Extortionists weren’t supposed to play nice with their victims.  They weren’t supposed to offer dinner or comfort or any of the other things else that bothered Trowa.   “Being a Preventer.” 

Trowa stared, brow furrowed.  He kept his face carefully smooth when Kader turned to him and smiled.  “Your patience is astounding.  I would never be able stand such a blatant disregard of my abilities, were I as talented as you.” 

Trowa heard a low ringing.  It built until it swallowed Kader’s voice.  Or rather most of it. 

“Imagine: a Gundam pilot so reduced.  You wiped out battalions in a handful of minutes.  You crept into the most intimate places of the enemy.  You ensured victory, and the best gift these people offer you are quiet days at a desk with a pen and a never-ending pile of paperwork.”  Kader paused to sip his wine.  “Though you may prefer it.  The life of a Gundam pilot has to be exhausting, especially for one so young.  You might enjoy calm certainty of a civilian’s life—” 

Trowa wasn’t sure when he picked it up, or when he decided that the fork looked better embedded in Kader’s hand.  All Trowa knew was that suddenly there was blood and cursing, and a delayed scream of shock and rage as he was yanked out of the chair by the hair.  

A thick, jacket-covered arm wound about his throat.  Trowa twisted, ignoring the sharp pain of ripped out hair, and drove his elbow into the base of Nizar’s ribcage.  Nizar doubled-over with a grunt.  Kader caught Trowa’s fist in a bloody grip before it could explode forward.  Trowa swung his leg back.  Kader danced out of it and into the arc of the fist he had dropped.  Ducking down, he caught Trowa around the waist and lifted.  Trowa gasped as he was held over the broad shoulder. 

When Kader started walking, Trowa twisted.  His heel almost made to the bastard’s eyes.  Kader caught his ankle in his spare hand, threw it down again, and wrapped his arm about Trowa’s thrashing knees. 

“Put me down,” he snarled.  He would _not_ beat his fists against Kader’s back like s woman, but Trowa wasn’t beneath digging his fingers into whatever soft skin and muscle he could reach.   

The moment they entered the bedroom, the room started spinning.  Trowa caught flashes of walls and bed posts before he landed with a grunt on the mattress.  He dug into the slick sheets.  He needed distance if he was going to keep Kader from pinning him down. 

Kader didn’t touch him.  He turned on his heel and walked out, slamming the door shut behind him. 

Trowa waited.  When Kader didn`t come back after a minute of heart-thudding silence, he sat up.  The angry tension melted from his face, replaced after a moment with suspicion.  That too slid away as Trowa heard nothing but voices (muffled with distance and therefore useless), the gentle tick of the clock, and his own breathing.  He counted a few hundred seconds, a few hundred breaths and was nearly fidgeting by the time the door opened again.  

Kader glared at him and the look seemed to suck the air out of the room.  Trowa swallowed.  Kader closed the door softly with a towel-bandaged hand.  Trowa fisted the bedding when he stepped towards, his grip tightening with every step. 

“You owe me an explanation,” he said finally.  Trowa`s eyes narrowed. 

“I owe you a matching knife.”  

Trowa realized that Kader’s arms were longer than his when his head snapped to the side from the backhand.  Kader was barely standing at the edge of the bed, barely a few inches in front of Trowa’s knees, and his hard knuckles had reached Trowa’s cheek easily.  He didn’t have time to dwell on the fact.  Heavy hands landed hard on his shoulders.  Hips followed, sliding over Trowa’s shins as he sprawled backwards.  Trowa twisted and yanked his knees up. Kader caught them.  He pushed them back and opened.  Trowa hissed and bucked. 

Kader settled between them, using his weight to hold Trowa’s thrashing legs awkwardly down and freeing his hands to deal with Trowa`s fists.  Trowa cursed as Kader crushed his hands against his chest.  Kader leaned closer to reach for something above Trowa`s head.  His throat was just close enough.  Trowa lunged at it with a snarl. 

Kader pulled back with a sneer.  He dragged Trowa up with him.  Trowa slumped forward, aiming for the throat with his teeth and pulling on the grip around his wrists.  If Kader let go just a little, he coud— 

The world dimmed as cloth went up over his head, a hand forcing the cloth and buttons into his mouth.  Trowa sputtered around it.  Kader yanked his shirt up further.  He twisted it, pulling hair as he tangled his shirt around Trowa`s arms. The buttoned collar caught on his throat.  Trowa coughed. 

Trowa tumbled back onto the mattress, struggling against the improvised restraint.  Kader fished his hands out the cloth and snapped heavy, cold metal around them.  Trowa pulled and twisted.  _What kind of pervert keeps manacles_ under _his pillow?_

Kader flipped Trowa onto his stomach and stretched out over his back.  “Maybe you`d like to give me that explanation _now_ ,” he hissed, grinding his hips against his rear.  Trowa hissed himself.  _Not fucking likely!_

Trowa nearly had the shirt out of his mouth in Kader shoved his face into a pillow.  Trowa cursed: first Kader and then his own inability to break out and breathed.  He was too focused on the one hand holding his head into the pillow to notice the second until it had already yanked his hips up and his pants down.   

Trowa froze, his back curved and his chest pressed hard into the mattress.  In such an open position, Kader felt close.  Too close.  Trowa could feel the smooth touch of an expensive suit against his knees and thighs.  He could feel the man`s heat with the sensitive skin of his genitals.  Trowa swallowed and shivered.

Trowa had been taken from behind before.  Most of the mercenaries had preferred it, hands glued to his breasts so a few choice pieces of anatomy couldn`t ruin their fantasies.  They almost always held him up.  A few of the taller ones managed with him on his knees.  None of them ever pushed him down like that.  

They wouldn’t.  They weren`t interested in men and didn`t want to face the possibility that half of Trowa`s body teased them with.  The same possibility Kader stared at without any obvious issues.  Kader’s large hand rested on Trowa’s thigh, just underneath the curve of his rear.  Trowa could feel his thumb, mere inches away from his already moistening slit and his balls.  It was rubbing slow circles on his skin.

Trowa never felt more exposed.

Kader’s hand slid away from his head, somehow knowing that the embarrassment would hold Trowa still better than any physical force.  A finger glided down the back of his neck and around the first few prominent ridges of his spine. One finger became a few and then a hand.  It drifted over the stiff material of the corset.  Trowa jolted when the fingers found the edge of it and slid onto his skin.  Kader chuckled behind him.  He walked his fingers to the first of the clasps.  It fell open at his touch.  

Too soon the corset slipped off of him.  It landed on the mattress beneath him with a soft thud.  Trowa`s breasts hung free and swayed.  A warm hand stroked down the middle of his back, hivers and a quiet whimper following in its wake.  Trowa’s breath hitched when the hand slid around his side to his chest.  The thumb still making circles on his thigh dug in. 

Kader pressed his lips to the base of his spine.  Trowa pulled forward to escape.  Kader’s arm slid around his stomach and held him still.  Kader moved slowly, kissing his skin along the side of a long scar near Trowa’s waist.  Trowa shifted and arched away.  Kader followed, his arm pushing hard against Trowa`s abdomen until he stilled again. 

Kader took his time exploring the limited unmarked skin on Trowa’s back.  He ignored every shift and pull Trowa made, every near-silent whine and sharp gasp through his teeth.  Trowa trembled under the intense, physical scrutiny as every inch of skin Kader touched tingled, even after he had moved on. 

The kisses finally end at the nape of his neck.  Kader was pressed against his back, his crotch snug against his rear.  Trowa shuddered as Kader rocked forward. 

“Tell me,” he murmured.  The words were hot against his ear.  Trowa burrowed into the pillow. 

Kader shifted back.  He gave Trowa less than a few seconds before he attacked Trowa’s back again.  This time, it was his tongue that slid up the first scar.  

Kader went slower this time.  There was no piece of dead skin that he didn’t touch.  At the start of every scar, Kader’s tongue licked a small circle at its base, and then followed it with a slow, upward pull.  The tip slid along the scar’s line with a surgeon’s exactness.  It retracted at the end, letting Kader’s lips end all the attention with a kiss.    

Halfway up his back, Kader had to wrap his arms around Trowa’s waist and stroke his stomach to keep him even remotely still. 

Trowa heaved, biting into both shirt and pillow and grabbing the chains he found attached to the manacles hard enough to mark his palms.  Every inch of attention-lavished scar tissue had a memory.  Some of them were blessedly incomplete.  The mass of faded scars across the center of his back only had a vague memory of smoke and the creak of fire-weakened wood.  Others were mundane: suture scars from bullet and knife wounds, and where a drill had slipped off the scaffolding.  But then there were the razor scars: narrow lines where the flesh had parted almost elegantly.  And there were the wider, gaping one of the belt, jagged where the buckle had ripped from skin from muscle and bone. 

The captain had been the first to try the belt and had grown fond of it.  Trowa tended to avoid wearing them when he could. 

The last scar was long, stretching from spine to shoulder.  It wasn’t the nastiest of the belt scars, but one of the mercenaries had poured an entire bottle of vodka on it.  So the flesh burned when Kader touched it.  Trowa whimpered into the pillow.  

“Tell me,” Kader said, stroking his stomach.  

If he was referring to the scars, then Kader was going to be disappointed.  There was nothing that would make Trowa open his mouth while he was this close to hysterics.  If he was referring to the knife though. 

He should have known better, he thought, clinging to it to try and get a hold of his dwindling control.  Honestly, Kader couldn’t have been expecting anything different.  He couldn’t honestly have thought that Trowa would sit quietly while he threw thinly-veiled insults at him.  Of course, he probably hadn’t expected that explosive of a reaction.  Trowa hadn’t either now that he thought about it.  There had just been something so infuriating about hearing his own bitterness coming out of Kader’s mouth—

Kader nipped at the scar, and Trowa suddenly forgot everything he was angry about in a blind burst of a panic. 

“Stop,” he said, squirming beneath him, some of the patheticness of the plea swallowed up by the pillow.   

“Tell me and I will.”  The teeth grazed the scar again.  Trowa bit back a whimper. 

 “It hurts.” 

Kader stilled.  After a few seconds, the lightly-pressed teeth left his back.  The hand on Trowa’s thigh slid around his hip and up his side until it could carefully unearth Trowa’s head from the pillow he had buried himself in. 

The room was bright and thin when Kader forced Trowa’s head up.  Maybe it was from a lack of oxygen, maybe it was from the sensual assault, but past the bedroom’s ugly bronze walls, Trowa saw just-as-ugly and rickety scaffolding and the pathetic shells of mobile suits.  There were faded tent poles inside the faded centers of the bedposts.  Trowa shifted.  Grass and silk beneath his knees.  Wine and blood and oil in his nose.  Behind him, he heard Kader breathing, and in front of him there was soft susurrus of dinner chatter.    

Trowa tossed his head, ignoring the dull pain as he pulled his own hair with someone else’s grip.  His cheeks itched.  He tasted salt. 

There was, however, no mistaking who touched him.  Kader stroked his limp erection with his palm.  The bedroom snapped back into focus.  Trowa was thankful for about ten seconds.

“Stop,” he said, twisting away from his hand.  

“Would you prefer the teeth then?” 

Trowa let out an angry, and rather pitiful, groan.  Kader released his hair.  Trowa dropped back to the pillow with a grunt.  Squirming, he shoved shaking arms beneath his chin and pushed.  Kader grabbed his rear and squeezed, a thumb nudging at the tight entrance.  Trowa fell forward with a gasp. 

“Just stay,” Kader said twisting the flesh in his hand.  Shaking his head, Trowa squirmed, even after Kader managed to wriggle a long, dry finger inside of him.  

His ass had never been the mercenaries’ first choice.  Even if it had, though, Trowa doubted it would make the slow push and pull would hurt less.  He grit his teeth until he felt the back of Kader`s hand lay flush against him.  Held his breath as it started back again.  That breath rushed out in a gasp when withdrawing finger circled _._ The tight ring of muscle barely moved at all.  . 

“I didn`t think you could get any tighter,” Kader said when the tip of his finger finished a last brush against the clenching hole.  Trowa, panting through his nose because skin was not supposed to pull like that, shivered as Kader stroked him.  He keened softly as Kader’s thumb swept over the moist head and two fingers pushed back in. 

Kader did something like that every time something _should_ have hurt.  When he curled his fingers, or twisted them so that the fatter second knuckles caught and pulled, or nudged them so far apart Trowa was sure he was looking straight inside, he did something to his erection.  Stroked or twisted it with an irritatingly perfect amount of pressure.  Ran a thumb around the head before pressing it hard against the slit.  So Trowa was, unfortunately, already on the verge of moaning, and rocking very slightly, when Kader brushed something inside that made him buck and swear. 

Kader chuckled.  “Well that`s good to know.”

Trowa breathed curses into the pillow as Kader rubbed that spot, his hips pushing back against the fingers whether he wanted them to or not.  A low, pleasant heat started to coil in his stomach.  The tension in his back and sides started to ease.  Kader slid his fingers a little deeper, nudging apart Trowa’s legs, needing only token amounts of coaxing to get Trowa to comply.  And when Kader eventually, almost reluctantly, withdrew, Trowa let out a low sound he only partially realized was a whine. 

Kader chuckled and patted his ass, which would have infuriated Trowa if he wasn’t also palming Trowa’s arousal-dampened balls.  Trowa was so focused on the fingers rolling and pulling them slowly—hard, gentler, harder again and then faster—that he didn`t even notice the missing hand until thick, hot flesh rubbed against the cleft of his ass. 

Kader pushed. 

Trowa filled his mouth with pillow.  Too big, it was much too big.  Kader gripped his hips.  Trowa almost didn`t want to struggle.  Trying to force it out, or ripping it out, would have to make it hurt more.

“Longer next time.  Fuck, you`re tight,” Kader growled. 

“Take it out!”

“Just relax, like you did with the fingers." 

“Out!”

There were tears in his scream as Kader eased his hips forward. “Relax,” he said.

It might have been a little better if Trowa could just stay still.  Then, Kader would have had a free hand to stroke him with.  But he couldn`t, so Kader held his shaking hips in both hands as he pushed, slowly but constantly.  Trowa almost wanted to beg for the distracting touch.  A twist, a pull, something.  Anything.   But neither of them could trust Trowa not to arch forward, twist sideways, or some other move that could lead to total agony.

Finally, the pressure stopped.  Warm, solid flesh pressed against the back of his thighs.  Kader stroked his sides and around to Trowa’s heaving stomach.  Trowa flinched.  He could feel it, the head of it.  He swore he could.  It was there, poking at his intestines.  When Kader pushed again, it would rip through it.  Trowa waited, trembling.

Kader didn’t move.  He knelt behind Trowa and stroked his trembling skin.  Slowly at first, his fingers drifted lightly up to his ribs.  Then his fingers turned and circled down Trowa’s sides.  Back up again with the pads of his fingers, then down again with his whole hand. 

Eventually, Trowa`s breathing evened.  The cold sweat that had beaded along his spine dried.  The pain and that horrible sense of _fullness_ lessened.  Kader stroked his sides one last time as his hands returned to his hips.  Trowa trembled between his hands.  When Kader withdrew and returned, slowly, letting Trowa stretch around him as he moved, the absolute fullness, that fear, didn’t return. 

That still didn’t make it pleasant.

Kader thrust slowly, removing only an inch, then two, three, of flesh before pushing back in.  His tight grip on Trowa`s hips kept him from rocking, either into or away.   Trowa fisted the chains, counting each shallow thrust with a squeeze and each gained inch with a groan. 

His knees were starting to hurt.  Trowa shifted a little.  His hips moved in Kader`s hands, and the head scrapped the edge of that spot.  Trowa gasped as heat sparked beneath his stomach.

Kader`s grip tightened.  Without stopping his thrusts, he moved Trowa`s hips.  Up and down and around.  Trowa hissed as the blunt head scrapped across walls until it thrust straight into that spot.   Trowa gasped, high and breathy, and pushed back as far as he was allowed.  Kader stopped.  The head was pressed lightly against it.  Kader rolled his hips.  The head nudged, scrapped, and retreated.  The heat flared and faded.  Trowa twisted until Kader’s fingers started to leave bruises on his hips. 

Finally, Trowa whined

Kader pulled out until the head was stretching the skin just past his entrance.  He snapped his hips forward.  Trowa supposed it should have hurt: inches of thick flesh plunging back into his bowels with enough force to shove his body a few inches forward.  There was probably blood.   But the head slammed into the spot and there was only white hot pleasure.  Before Trowa had enough breath in his lungs to moan, Kader had pulled out and slammed back in.  On the third thrust, Trowa choked out a scream.

Only his grip on the chains, which rattled and cut into his palms with the pounding, kept Trowa grounded.  It was a loose attachment to his body, at best.  Distantly, he heard the creak of the mattress and the slapping of Kader’s thighs and cock.  He heard moans.  He felt them, his rising out his chest, Kader’s rumbling down into his back.  

He should have been angry.  Angry about the carelessness—Trowa jolted as a hand snaked around his erection and stroked—Kader showed for his body.  Angry about the easy manipulation.   Trowa should have been _embarrassed_.  When did he become so manageable, so malleable?  He had better control than this.  With the right thought process, with the right memories, he could have himself limp and numb and gone.  It was easy.  And yet, here he was, moaning and rocking, his head spinning off of his body in a horribly-pleasant white haze, and all because he was too weak to remember that he was doing this for all of the wrong reasons. 

He should have been angry.  He should have been embarrassed.  He should have hated himself, but he simply didn’t care.  Not right then, when there was a pleasure he hadn’t known was possible lancing through him.  Not when his head was the quietest it had been in years.  

Besides, there would never be a “right” reason.  Or a normal reason.  Or an appropriate time.  Or an appropriate person.  Clearly, he wasn’t meant for that.

_Pleasure wasn’t meant for you at all_.  The last piece of his rational mind was clinging, desperate for that last fraying hold he had on himself.  Trowa’s hands, wet with blood from scratches, slipped on the chains.   

Kader pulled him up.  Thrusting harder, he buried his teeth into the end of the scar on Trowa’s shoulder.  Trowa arched with a cry, and that last hold broke.

Misery could wait until tomorrow. 

.*-----*-----*

Nizar decided that soundproofing was something of a small miracle.  He stacked the last of his late-dinner dishes in the drying rack, glancing over his shoulder.  Without the soundproofing, the boy would have terrified the neighbors long ago, and Nizar would have had the unfortunate pleasure of explaining (to them or a police unit) whatever situation he made up.  If he had been able to ignore most of their noise, though, no one should have heard the boy’s screaming.

They had been quiet for a while, now.  Almost an hour, he realized after looking at his watch.  Could he have actually _tired_ the walking libido?  That would have been a pleasant change.  As Nizar tossed a towel onto the counter, he heard footsteps behind him.  _Well, that was too much to hope for._

Fahd, dressed in loose jeans and carrying a towel, ran his injured hand through his hair.  He flinched.  Nizar’s mouth twitched.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Fahd muttered.  Nizar snorted and gestured towards the table.  Fahd sat down, tossing the onto the table.   It was stained with blood and Nizar didn’t want to know what else. 

“People need to eat off this,” Nizar said snatching it up.

“Unless you plan on licking your food off the glass, I think you’ll be fine.” 

Nizar frowned.  He threw the towel in the trash and dug out one of their numerous first aid kits from under the sink.  He pulled a mostly dry bowl from the dish rack as well.  Sitting across from his irritating charge, he took Fahd’s injured hand none too gently.  He was still bleeding, although less than he had been.  Holding his hand over the bowl, Nizar opened a bottle of peroxide with his teeth and poured it over the wounds.

Fahd barely flinched.  He apparently found something about the far wall extremely fascinating.  Fascinating and irritating, actually.  Nizar frowned; it wasn’t like to be moody after sex.  He pinched the long, narrow rips from the fork’s prongs with his fingers.

That got Fahd to hiss and look at him.  He watched as Nizar inspected the wounds and weighed the necessity of stitches. “The press is going to have a field day,” he said.

“And whose fault is that?” Nizar asked after deciding that as long as Fahd was careful (and he generally wasn’t) he wouldn’t need stitches.  Maybe some extra blood loss would make Fahd behave.  “I suppose you have a story?”

“I think I’ll tell them I was helping a stray,” he said with a smirk. 

“This doesn’t look like a dog bite.”

“No one’s going to look under the bandages,” he said.  “And I never said ‘dog’.”

Nizar took out the gauze and tossed it at him before packing up the kit.  Fahd frowned at him as he took it and the bowl back to the sink.  _I hope you tear them open another inch trying to wrap it._

“Your resources are better than mine.” Fahd said after a moment.  Nizar looked over from where he was washing the bowl.    

“That would depend on what you want.  If you’ve broken it already,” he said, gesturing towards the trashcan with his head, “I doubt I can find you a new one.”

“Not necessary, I assure you.  He’s tougher than he looks.”  Nizar snorted and turned back to the bowl.  “I need information.  About his life.” 

Nizar stopped.  He turned slowly, brows drawn tight, and didn’t even notice the water dripping onto the floor or his pants.

“You know about his life,” he said carefully.

“He wasn’t born fifteen.  That file only goes back just before the war.  A couple of months at best.”

Nizar hadn’t finished the file yet.  It was thick and he was generally too busy to read.  His pulse quickened.  _It covers three to four years?_   How much havoc did the boy wreck in such a short time?  How much damage did he cause before?  What _was_ he before?

Fahd tied the bandage off with teeth.  “Find out for me.  Anything, everything, I don’t care if all you get me is a list of overdue library books.  It’ll tell me something, at least, and I want to know everything I can about him.”

“Why?”

Fahd looked up at him and smiled.  It was a slow expression, a small upturn of his lips that widened steadily until they parted and revealed a row of straight, white teeth.   His black eyes grew distant as Fahd considered something Nizar could only guess at it.  He blinked, and that distance turned into a glow.  The bright sheen of obsession. 

It was the same look Fahd had gotten when he explained how a nerve toxin, with a few specific components that would cause anaphylactic shock in his allergy-prone father, would hasten the resistance’s plans.  Death would have been better, of course, but risky.  And Fahd was at least will to settle for brain dead so long as it saw the man out of the way.

And made him suffer.

Information.  On his life.  His childhood.  Nizar almost felt sorry for the boy. 

He bowed his head.  “Of course.”      

*-----*-----*

Maybe it was because Trowa just looked _that_ miserable—which tended to happen after sitting on a sore ass, mentally kicking himself, for nine hours—but on Sunday night, after a dinner where there wasn’t a fork or knife in sight, Kader let him sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, I sit here and wonder what the hell is wrong with my brain.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the arrangement continues into the holidays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for partial nudity, dubious consent, and swearing.
> 
> This chapter jumps around a bit.

               

In the hands of Quatre Raberba Winner, champagne was a lethal weapon.               

“I am so sorry,” he said, trying once again to get at the mess of glass, water, and partially-dead petals on the floor.  Wufei shooed him away with the broom.  Far from deterred, Quatre turned to Trowa who was still trying to soak water from his sweater with a towel.               

“It was an accident,” Trowa said before Quatre finished opening his mouth.  Duo grinned.              

“But what an accident.  We should have armed you with a wine cellar back in the war.”               

Quatre kicked at him.  Heero pulled him out of range by the braid and shoved a dustpan in his hands.               

“Alright, alright.  Bad timing, I get it.”               

Bad timing or not, Trowa had to admit—silently, because between Quatre’s guilt and Duo’s ego, he would never hear the end of it—that Duo had a point.  Quatre was an impeccable shot, even when he wasn’t trying.  If Trowa had been more distracted, the cork would have shot straight into his throat.  

If he had been _less_ distracted, he would have spun out instead of dropping down, and his sweater wouldn’t be soaked.               

Quatre was still apologizing, and avoiding Wufei’s playfully-irritated swipe of the broom, so no one noticed when Trowa wrung the edge of his sweater like it was a certain Middle Eastern, terrorist-bastard’s thick neck.                

“Just stop,” Wufei said finally.  Quatre frowned. Wufei leaned on the end of the broom.  “It was an accident.  You can’t really apologize for accidents.  Now if you knew you couldn’t open a bottle without it exploding, and were purposefully aiming for the vase, then, maybe, you could apologize.  But I wasn’t particularly fond of the ugly thing anyway.”               

“That ugly thing,” Zechs said coming from the bedroom, “was a birthday gift from my sister.”              

“One which had a perfectly acceptable place on the top shelf of the hall closet up until recently, when she started stopping by unannounced,”   Wufei said.  He returned to the glass, sweeping a bit harder than necessary.               

Zechs frowned.  “Only one person is allowed to call my sister’s gifts ‘ugly’.”               

“I’m still waiting to hear it.”  Zechs rolled his eyes.  Turning away, he shoved a bundle of cloth into Trowa’s hands.               

“Way to encourage the addition of color,” Duo said after Trowa had shaken out the black turtleneck.  “A holiday party and you give him black.”               

“It’s perfect for a New Year’s party,” Zechs said.  Duo snorted.  “Think of it as a little black dress if you must.”               

Zechs’ words were met with a horrible silence.  Even the hollow cheering from the clips of global New Year’s celebrations on the television weren’t enough to make the sudden stop of everything less awkward.  Wufei sneered at him, hands tight around the broom handle.  Zechs broke eye contact quickly, swallowing and finding a piece of glass on the floor very interesting suddenly.   Duo glanced up at Heero, his left cheek dipping in where he was chewing on it.  Heero didn’t look at anyone but at the light fixture, his expression hard as if it had personally offended him.  He did, however, shift every so slightly toward the space between Trowa and Zechs.  

Quatre simply stared.               

Trowa had promised himself that tonight would be as normal as possible for one of their get-togethers, so he scoffed.                

“As if any of us want to think about the dresses you keep in your closet.”               

Heero reacted first, choking on badly-suppressed laughter.  Wufei bent over the broom handle, shoulders shaking.  Duo actually laughed.  Satisfied that the room was once again as relaxed as it could get, Trowa headed towards the bathroom.               

He didn`t turn the light on right away.  Closing the door, Trowa leaned back against it and listened to Zechs threaten to use Duo as an ice sculpture—“I refuse to keep anything that ugly on the front lawn,” Wufei snorted—while Quatre and Heero laughed.  Trowa sighed as the mirth drifted through the door.                

 _Don`t make it awkward_.  He promised himself he wouldn’t.  None of them could deal with it anymore, and since the awkwardness came from Trowa and his body and his willingness to ignore their unwillingness to talk about it, it was up to him to keep things…normal.  If it was possible.  They deserved it, or at least the attempt.  Even Zechs, although at the moment Trowa wanted to shove the turtleneck down his throat.                

Trowa switched on the overhead light.  Off-white walls and unornamented tiles.  A ceramic sink with metal fixtures in need of some cleaning.  A narrow glass shower stall.                

He sighed.  Trowa hadn`t realized how much he had missed unadorned necessities.  There were touches here and there of personality, of course: a half-hidden incense burner, a subtle dusting of silver in the paint.  But these were minor and easily ignored.  Nothing _demanded_ his attention.  His mercenary mind didn`t reel from an overload of sheer waste and the dangers it brought.  He could actually use this bathroom without feeling a little sick. 

Because he certainly hadn`t been able to appreciate his own very practical bathroom recently.  Not when he spent all of five minutes taking a cold shower and brushing his teeth because, once again, he came home too late and too tired to do anything else but sleep.  And there was nothing practical within five miles of Kader`s apartment, and the man seemed dead set on keeping it that way.

Trowa tossed the turtleneck onto the toilet seat and yanked on the water.  Already soaked, he wasn`t careful about scrubbing his face.  He couldn`t come out with a face _that_ much redder than when he went in, not if he wanted to keep them happy and ignorant.  Cold water did wonders for anger. 

 _So would a roll in the snow, but they would ask about that._  

He wouldn’t need the icy dousing, or the clenching fists or the biting of cheek and tongue, if Trowa could simply stop _thinking_ about Kader.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t.  It was impossible; Kader had seen to that. 

The bastard apparently _liked_ Trowa’s reactions.  _Like dodging flatware_.  He got some sort of additional, equally perverse pleasure out of keeping Trowa mentally and physically off-balanced.  There could be no other reason otherwise for the food and the blindfold, the teasing and stroking, the sex and the sex, the—

The cell phone in his back pocket vibrated in an irritating, familiar rhythm.  

—the phone calls. 

It had to be Kader, since his “public” cell phone was in his coat in the closet, and everyone else who would actually bother to call his cell phone were already here.  Trowa snarled into the towel he had grabbed.  He considered, for less than twenty seconds, throwing the damn thing out the window.  He tossed the towel on the counter and fished the phone out. 

“What,” he snarled.  

Trowa could almost hear the grin stretching across Kader’s face.  “I think you enjoyed that spanking more than you’d care to admit.” 

He flushed.  Trowa had ignored Kader once in the whole three weeks of consecutive work, and Kader had not taken it well.  He had greeted Trowa that night with a tsk and a smack on the rear hard enough that Trowa yelped.  It didn’t matter that Trowa had been buried so deep in paperwork he had forgotten about lunch.  Trowa had “responsibilities.”  Kader would not abide such blatant laziness. 

At the time, the only response Trowa could think of was a slap across the face that ended up hurting him a lot more than Kader.  He only got a couple of solid hits in before Kader manhandled him over the back of the couch.  Nizar was going to bitch about the bite marks in the leather forever. 

Trowa had hurt for days.   There was nothing he could do that didn’t aggravate his backside, save for lying perfectly still on his stomach, which he simply didn’t have time for.  Trowa forced himself to sit and stand without grimacing or fidgeting.  He had to.  There was nothing he could say as an explanation that wouldn’t finally attach Heero to his hip out of frustrated suspicion.  

Mindful of the threat, and not wanting to give Kader anything remotely _close_ to a reason for a second round, Trowa swallowed the anger and embarrassment.  He unclenched his jaw. 

“What is it,” he asked, his voice so neutral it sounded mechanical.  

“Passable.  But I would think you’d be a little happier to hear from me, all things considered.” 

Trowa wondered exactly what he meant: that he had left Trowa physically alone since last weekend, (unless Kader _wanted_ Preventers breathing done his neck, because people would notice in Trowa simply stopped coming home regularly); or that on his first weekend free, he had allowed Trowa to be dragged off to Wufei and Zechs’ small New Year’s Party.  

Of course, if Kader had said no, it wouldn’t be long until Heero was breathing down Kader’s neck with a loaded gun.  

But that didn’t stop Trowa from wondering why.  Wearing Heero down to the point where Nizar could shoot him in the head would have been messy, not to mention noisy, but that didn’t mean that Kader couldn’t at least try.  And he didn’t.     

“Expecting a thank you,” Trowa asked, unable to keep his irritation from simply not _understanding_ out of his voice.  

“You aren’t very good with words.”  Kader paused.  “Where are you?” 

Trowa ground his teeth. “You know where I am.” 

“No, but I could.  It would only take a minute.  Of course, I might have to put in target coordinates first—” 

“The bathroom,” he snapped. 

“Now was that so hard?  Get undressed.” 

Trowa blinked slowly.  “What?” 

“Get undressed,” Kader repeated slowly.  “Or just your jeans if you must be difficult.” 

“Are you insane?” 

“No, I am getting my thank you.” 

 _How?  It’s not like he can see me._   “I’m in their bathroom,” he hissed. 

“I’m aware of that.  Now.”

Trowa glanced back at the door.  The chatter had quieted, which made him assume the cleanup was finished and everyone was back in the living room with champagne and the last of a warm dinner.  _Assumed_.  Trowa couldn’t be sure.  He had been in the bathroom far too long already.  Someone, hopefully Quatre but at the very least Wufei, would come knocking.  Soon.  And unless they had actually gotten that far down on their list of “minor repairs” list his last visit, the lock was still broken.  

“No.” 

“You are just itching for another turn over the couch, aren’t you?” 

Trowa gripped the sink.  “Not now.  Not here.” 

“I really don’t think you have much choice in the matter.” 

There was a creak from the hall.  “Later.  Whenever.   Please.” 

Kader was silent.  Trowa didn’t think he sounded _that_ desperate.  He swallowed as he heard the low drumming of thoughtful fingers.  It was not the full sound of skin and bone on wood or cushion.  Trowa glanced sideways towards the window.  He only now started to wonder where exactly Kader man was.    

“Are you staying there tonight?” 

Quatre had a late start tomorrow, but work nonetheless. “No.”

“Be awake at 2 A.M.  And pray you’re home then, because I won’t care if you’re not.” 

Kader hung up without his usual leering farewell.  Trowa closed the phone with a shaky sigh, doing his best not to imagine what the man’s irritation would mean.  Phone back in his pocket, Trowa wriggled out of his wet sweater.  He wrung most of the water out before draping it over the shower door and pulling on the borrowed turtleneck.  He shoved the slightly too-long sleeves up to his elbows.  At least it was thick enough and loose enough to hide the corset.  

“Took you long enough,” Duo said, handing him a glass of champagne when he came back to the living room. 

“My apologies for needing the necessities.” 

“Accepted, but only because it’s Christmas.” 

“Get a calendar.” 

“Sorry, ‘the Christmas season.’ That lasts until the tree hits the curb.”    

“Which will be tomorrow because I’m done sniffling,” Trowa said. 

“People are not allergic to pine trees, just pine sap.” 

“Which is why you’re dragging it to the curb tomorrow morning and not me,” Heero said from the couch.  

Duo tapped his glass against Trowa’s with a grin.  “A small price to pay for getting to have one.” 

It wasn’t that Heero, or Trowa for that matter, were againstChristmas trees.  They were pretty, usually.  And Trowa was sure they smelled “heavenly” (Duo’s words and he almost choked on his tea when he heard it).  Not that Trowa could actually smell it, but they just seemed so unnecessary.  And messy.  How did a slowly dying tree—which had only gotten inside the house with a lot of effort, cursing, and bruises—covered in one too far too shiny baubles and dropping a carpet of pine needles make the holiday better?

Unless it had something to do with the Christmas spirit thing Duo always talked about. 

Because there had been a definite change in the house once the tree was actually in place.  And once they figured out, and solved, the small issue of Heero not being able to touch it—or anything that had touched it, including Duo.  It was the only time Heero ever took a sick day, and Trowa suspected it was more to keep from killing Duo than from the fact that he had to sit and stand with his legs more than slightly apart for a few days. 

Even though he threatened to burn the damn thing (even after Duo had proved that washing his hands with a hypochondriac’s fervor kept the rash at bay), Trowa knew Heero liked it.  And he that he liked the energy the tree gave Duo.  Trowa had caught him more than once watching Duo while he fretted and fussed over the tree.  And while Heero didn’t actually smile, there was no mistaking the bliss in his unusually relaxed face.

It was an addictive mood, too.  Trowa found himself almost smiling Christmas Eve while Duo cursed at tangled lights and pulled Trowa’s hands through the needles to position them since apparently Trowa couldn’t do it right.  His eagerness gave Trowa enough energy to last the full hour of sticky, pointy labor.  But no more. 

Not that Duo was terribly disappointed.  Quatre made a much better decorating partner since he wouldn’t constantly sneeze.  

“You should have gotten a fake one,” Zechs said from his place on the arm of the chair Wufei was in.  

“Oh, like your dinky little ceramic one?  I’d rather not have one,” Duo snorted, planting himself between Quatre and Heero. 

“Which could always be arranged,” Heero said.  

“You liked it.” 

“Hardly.”

“Ceramic is tasteful,” Zechs said.

“It’s not Christmas.”

“Well considering this was done mostly as a courtesy for two irritating people, I think it’s fine,” Wufei said.  

“I’m surprised Relena didn’t drag one from her yard.” 

“It was not for lack of trying,” Wufei muttered. 

“She means well,” Zechs said.  

“She needs someone new to irritate.  Preferably someone far away from here.” 

“She’s—” 

Wufei glared at him over his glass.  “Don’t say it.” 

“Well she is.” 

“That’s no excuse.”

Quatre sighed.  Leaning his head back, he smiled up at Trowa, who had drifted over when he decided that hovering behind the couch was less awkward than hovering by the wall. 

“Won’t be long now,” he said.  Trowa wasn’t sure whether Quatre was referring to midnight or the inevitable fight.   Either way, he nodded. 

Quatre’s smile widened, but it seemed oddly strained.  His eyes moved slowly across Trowa’s face.  He found something finally, focusing on it.  Whatever it was, it made him rather unhappy; Quatre sat up suddenly and took a long swig of his champagne.  Duo refilled his glass without comment. 

Wufei and Zechs reached their usual stalemate.  Trowa did his best not to sigh as the silence crept back.  Eventually he glanced at the TV; there was only so much awkward rustling of fabric and creaking cushions he could take.  And boring broadcast of global idiocy at least a little better than seeing bland, worried, or worse angry and confused, faces.  

Trowa was about to comment on the dress, or lack thereof, of an astounding number of women in these clips (because he was that desperate for the silence to end) when Duo leaned forward.   

“Ah that’s where I want to go,” he said leaning his chin in hand.  Quatre tilted his head. 

“Hawaii?” 

“Yeah man.  Look at that.” 

Heero looked, right when the screen switched from white sands to tanned cleavage. 

“Should I be worried,” he asked.               

“The sun, the sand—”               

“Sand really isn’t that impressive, Duo,” Quatre said.  “Trust me.”               

“—the surf.”              

“As if you’ve ever been near a surfboard,” Wufei snorted.               

“Hey, I could learn.”               

“Just don’t expect me to drag your drowned ass out of the water.”               

“Why would I?  I got him,” he said, laying his head on Heero’s shoulder.  “You’d fish me out, right?”  Heero turned his glass slowly between his fingers.  “Right?”  Heero took a long, slow drink, the corners of his mouth quirking up.               

Wufei smirked.  “Might want to stay out of the water.”              

“At least Heero can swim.”               

Trowa relaxed some as the conversation turned towards the more familiar teasing and talk of the future.  He wondered, while Heero assured Duo that the day he got anywhere near a surfboard was the day he gave up his gun, if Catherine would be surprised.  She had always assumed (after realizing that Trowa would never tell her) that they talked about the war.  Missions and victories, trials and scars.  “Relived the glory days” as it were, and there had been so much disgust in her voice that Trowa had been openly surprised.              

Maybe it was because they were young, but they rarely talked about the past.  Not the war and certainly nothing earlier than that.  They talked about the present: work and cars and the interesting, or irritating, habits of people.  They talked the future: places to go, skills to learn, things to make.                

They mentioned the past only when one of them was having one of those posttraumatic stress disorder moments the Preventer shrink had warned them about.  Talking through whatever set them off usually helped Quatre, and occasionally Duo.  Those conversations, though, were blessedly rare.               

If Trowa hadn’t learned to wake silently, nightmare or no, they probably wouldn’t be.               

Trowa blinked as Duo let out a snort.  He tilted his head and glanced at the television, wondering what he missed.  They were in Latin America now.  More drinking, more half-naked revelers.                

“I am not going to England,” Duo grumbled.  Trowa arched an eyebrow.  “Ever.  Islands aren’t meant to be cold.”               

Quatre folded his arms. “Well I’m not burning up in Hawaii.”               

“You lived in the desert.”               

“Inside or underground.”               

“Come on.  It’ll be good for you.”               

“Peeling skin is not good for you.”               

“You could use a little color.”               

“Look who’s talking.”               

“Which is why we should hit the beach.”               

“Not a chance.”               

“One minute,” Heero said.  Duo and Quatre stopped mid-sentence.                

The international clip show was, thankfully, over.  Now the camera was focused on the screaming, cheering crowd in packed into New York City.  Trowa wasn’t sure why the city had kept its pride of place as _the_ New Year’s spot.  He suspected it was mostly out of a sense of tradition; its reconstruction efforts were not nearly as impressive as some other cities.  Tradition was a powerful thing, though, even when it was stupid.    And cramming thousands of people into one area, the entrances of which were so congested that rescue and military personnel stood little chance of aiding any disaster victims, was the height of holiday stupidity.  He would never be caught dead in such a compromising position.               

Considering his current position, though, Trowa wondered if he should be more careful with such statements.                  

The New Year’s ball, an ornament even gaudier than some of Duo’s most beloved pieces, began its slow descent.  The clock at its base ticked off the seconds.  A low chanting began, growing louder as the final ten approached, until the entire rolling mass of revelers screamed out the countdown.               

Ten.  Nine.  Eight.  Everyone in the living room shifted, setting glasses on the floor or the coffee table.  Out of harm’s way. 

Seven.  Six.  Five.  Wufei leaned forward.  

Four.  Three.  Two.  Quatre gripped the cushion.                

Two.  _One_.               

The crowd on television erupted, and fireworks whizzed and banged outside.  Screams of “Happy New Year” pierced the walls and bulletproof glass.  They barely heard it.               

Wufei had his face buried in his hands.  Zechs was leaning over him, rubbing slow circles on his back.  Wufei shuddered but didn’t shrug away.   Duo had collapsed into the couch.  Trowa caught the glint of a tear before Duo rolled to the side and buried his face in Heero’s shoulder.  Heero rest his chin on his head, blank-faced but swallowing.  Quatre’s forehead was on the couch arm.               

Trowa didn’t move.  He couldn’t, not until—               

Music burst from the television, and outside voices rose.  “Should old acquaintances be forgot—”

Trowa sighed, running a hand over his mouth. 

Another year was over.  A year without gundams, where they didn’t have to sleep on the ground, or in a cockpit, for days on end.  Another year, where they weren’t huddled in a coat and blanket, eyes glued to a sight or a computer, waiting, was over.  They didn’t have to wonder if fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, was too young to die.  Another year was over. 

A year with no blood, and none of that disturbing curiosity that with nameless corpses.               

No lingering seconds between life and death. 

No training until their bones break and their bodies begged for sleep. 

A year where they were safe and warm almost every day.  Roofs over their heads.  Plenty of food that didn’t taste like tin.  

Friends.                               

Quatre shifted first, lifting his head.  Trowa shuddered at the intense relief—and obsessive, choking grief—shining out of those watery blue eyes.  Leaning forward, Trowa snatched the champagne bottle from the table.  He nearly caught Heero in the nose.  Quatre reached for his glass. 

Heero blinked slowly and then let out a long low sigh.    He murmured against Duo’s hair, nudged him lightly with his chin.  Duo squeezed his shoulders.  Swallowing, Trowa filled Quatre’s glass.  He shook, and champagne dribbled down the side of the glass.  

Zechs ducked down and kissed the back of Wufei’s neck lightly.  Wufei sighed.  He turned his head and smiled softly at him.  

Quatre raised his glass.  “Happy New Year,” he murmured, eyes glittering.  Trowa felt the burn prick at his own.  They touched glasses. 

The glass rang clumsily.                

 

*-----*-----* 

“Look on the bright side.  Maybe he’ll take the damn sick day.”               

Heero glared at Duo as he helped Trowa half-carry Quatre out of the backseat.  Quatre groaned and swatted at them before collapsing against Heero’s chest.               

“I can do it,” he slurred.               

“Shut up.”               

Trowa climbed out of the backseat slowly.  The gravel shifted noisily beneath his feet as he lost and then caught his balance.  They should have been more careful with the alcohol.                

As usual, Duo had recovered first and made up for the momentary plummet with an almost disturbing excitement    They had all let themselves be swept up into it.  Three bottles of champagne, and most of Zechs’ liquor cabinet, were considerably lighter by one-thirty in the morning, when Duo and Quatre’s dangerous swaying had signaled the end of the night.  Thankfully, the ride home was short, and Heero hadn’t indulged nearly as much.               

“Geez if you’re going to be like that,” Duo sighed.  “Let me help.”              

“Unlock the door.  Then we’ll talk about helping.”               

Duo dropped the key twice, took much longer than five seconds to find it both times, and then tried unlocking the front door with the wrong end.               

“Get the door, Trowa.”               

“I can—”               

“Shut up.”              

Somewhere between the front door and the staircase, Trowa ended up with a half-conscious Quatre.  He didn’t remember exactly where it was, but he suspected it was probably somewhere around the coffee table, where Duo had tripped.  Trowa decided, while the pair argued about Duo being carried to bed like a girl—or an old carpet if Heero got frustrated enough—that going up first was a good idea.  If Duo was going to be difficult, he didn’t want to be behind Heero when they reached the stairs.                

Quatre groaned as Trowa adjusted his grip.  He bent down and hooked an arm beneath Quatre’s knees.  Trowa insisted to himself that it was the alcohol, and only the alcohol, that had him stumbling as Quatre’s body rocked into his chest.  Still, he took the stairs carefully.                

He was at Quatre’s bedroom by the time Heero and Duo had stopped bickering enough to start up the stairs.  Quatre hadn’t stirred at all from _that_ , so Trowa didn’t worry too much about waking him with a bit of jostling.  He shifted him in his arms to grab the  doorknob.               

Ever tidy, Quatre had made his bed.  Trowa set him carefully in the center of it for a moment.  He had pulled back the duvet on one side.  He stopped as he reached for the sheet.  Shoes under the bed were one thing; shoes in the bed were another.  Of course if he dealt with the shoes, he should deal with the rest.  Trowa’s eyes slid slowly over Quatre’s body.  Somewhere, he heard the echo of a breathy, needy sigh.                

The clothes weren’t too nice.  Quatre could be bothered to sleep in them this one time.              

Trowa took his time sliding Quatre’s shoes off.  He needed to stay asleep right now.  But when he pulled the sheet over Quatre’s chest, Trowa caught the glimmer of eyes in the dark.  There was rustling, and then a hand reached out of the dark.               

Trowa stood, bent over him, as the warm hand settled against the curve of his cheek.  It trembled slightly.  The thumb swept slowly over his cheek bone.               

 _It isn’t me_.  He could barely see Quatre’s face, inches from his own.  Quatre’s eyes caught the faint light of the clock, but even with a gun to his head, Trowa wouldn’t have been able to tell the color of his eyes (if he hadn’t already known they were that tender shade of blue).  Heero and he were about the same height.  Their hair were somewhat similar in color.  In the dark, they could be brothers.                

And if by some miracle Quatre _could_ see in the dark, he was drunk enough to make the mistake.                

Trowa turned ever-so-slightly into the palm.  The guilt made him nauseous.              

Heero met him in the hall, after the hand had collapsed in a drunken stupor and Trowa had finished tucking Quatre into bed.   Trowa’s hand itched to cover his cheek, as if there was lipstick.  Or a stain.             

“Thanks,” Heero said softly.  Trowa nodded.  “You alright?”               

Trowa opened his mouth.  He shut it when he heard a not-so-distant thump.  Heero cursed.                

“Better than Duo,” he said.             

“I’ll kill him.”               

“Hurry up or he’ll beat you to it.”               

“Good night.  Sleep well, Trowa.”              

 _Not likely._   “Night.”               

Trowa kept a hand to the wall as he staggered downstairs.  The steps shifted beneath him, but he was drunk.  He should expect that; the bitterness and guilt knotting his stomach had nothing to do with it.  Trowa tripped on the carpet before opening and closing his door harder than necessary.  Or safe.  Trowa swallowed, back pressed against the wood.  

He waited.  The ceiling above him creaked.  The sound shifted across the room.  Not down, towards the stairs.  Trowa watched the ceiling, imagining cautious feet moving from one dark bedroom, and one dark bed, to another.              

Trowa ripped the coat off and threw it.  It landed on the bed, followed by the “private” cell phone which bounced once onto the pillow.              

It started vibrating almost immediately.               

Trowa ran a hand over his face before glancing at the clock.  Was a five-minute leeway supposed to be impressive?  He sneered at the phone, buzzing so incessantly it was starting to slip down the pillow’s side.  Snarling, he snatched it up.              

“No hello,” Kader asked after a half a minute of silence passed.               

Not even a growl.                   

“Fine.  I hope now’s a good time for you,” he said, sounding not at all concerned about the timing.  “There’s a bathroom near you.  Get in it.”              

Trowa considered staying exactly where he was, perched on the edge of the bed with his fingers digging into the mattress.  It wasn`t like Kader could see him—except that he probably could.  Kader had proven, time and again, that he could whatever he pleased.               

Trowa got off the bed and stormed to the bathroom without even a huff.  He wondered what difference location could make in whatever Kader was plotting until the overhead light was on.  The blue-toned covering over the overhead threw soft light across the bathroom.  Trowa watched his reflection grip the door frame.                

“Over by the sink,” Kader said.  Trowa moved stiffly.  He stood in front of the mirror, watching his nostrils flare and his chest strain against the corset.  He wanted kicked himself for being so out of control, not even able to slow his breathing a little.  He was very sure, however, that if he unlocked his knees, he would end up on the floor.  not being 

“Do not put the phone down.  Jeans off.”               

Undressing one-handed was not one of Trowa’s primary skills.  So he growled low in his throat as the jeans struggled against him.  The button of his fly slipped through his fingers.  The denim waist clung to his hips, jerking downwards as Trowa yanked on one leg and then the other.                

“Sounds like you might need a new pair soon.  May I suggest something a little looser next time?”               

“There won`t be a next time,” he hissed.               

“Keep thinking that.  Kick them away.”               

Since he was imaging it was Kader’s head, the jeans got good distance.  They landed against the base of the toilet.                

“What do you think?”               

Trowa sneered at the crumpled denim.              

“Trowa.”               

Maybe if he stared long enough, they would burst into flames.  Or maybe they would pop up and go running around the room, because nothing short of shock or force was ever going to make him—                

“Look at the damn mirror.”               

Kader wasn’t in the room.  He wasn’t even near the house.  Kader couldn’t be.  Even if he was, by the time Kader got inside, Heero would already be at the bottom of the stairs, covered in the bastard’s blood.   There was nothing Kader could do to make him obey.                

Except growl in that low voice.  The one colored with the faintest tinges of insanity.  The one that promised pain and something else Trowa refused to acknowledge or name.  Trowa shuddered as if hot breath, not hard plastic, caressed his ear.  And even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to look away, Trowa glanced at the mirror.               

He had shoved the turtleneck up his chest to attack the button and zipper of his jeans.  It had slithered back down and settled, wrinkled and crooked, on his waist.  Trowa saw his slightly rounded hips.  The finger-shaped bruises had finally faded.  He traced the curves of pelvic bones with his eyes, all the way down to the patch of auburn hair.  It made the skin of his abdomen look almost milky white.  And then he looked further still, to his flaccid cock which twitched enough at the scrutiny to make him nauseous.               

“What do you think,” Kader asked again.               

Trowa gripped the phone as his overactive imagination started to spin, supplying him with too-vivid images of things he couldn’t see: the small slit behind the smaller-than-average sack, glistening with the start of arousal because Trowa was either that weak or that perverted.               

“I hate you.” 

*-----*-----* 

“We need to talk.”               

Apparently, Heero had been expecting Trowa to jolt.  He didn’t even raise an eyebrow when Trowa twitched hard enough to scratch a long, black line across his paper.  Considering the question, Trowa assumed that Heero thought it was from reluctance about some long overdue conversation.  That suited Trowa just fine, actually.  It meant that he didn’t have to come up with a logical (by Heero’s definition) explanation.                

Trowa didn’t think “distracted by memories of masturbating on the bathroom floor” would countt.                 

Trowa turned in his chair with a carefully sculpted expression of mild curiosity and apprehension.  “All right,” he said.                

Heero shifted his weight enough that Trowa knew he hadn’t expected that answer.  “Have you gotten lunch yet,” Heero asked.  Trowa shook his head.  He hadn’t gotten around to getting away from the desk yet.  “The place you like is close.”               

“Less than five minutes.  Across the street, little bit down.”              

“Let’s go then.”               

Heero’s jacket was already on, his hands shoved into its pockets, but it was unzippered.  Trowa could refuse the invitation.  He could go back to his work and Heero back to his desk.  Heero would slip the coat off and drape over his chair going to the cafeteria without any hard feelings.  The matter would be closed, for now.                

But such obvious expressions of thoughtfulness were not only rare but, Trowa suspected, somewhat difficult for Heero.  He was slightly flattered.              

Which made Trowa wonder if Heero had been given the idea.  “What about Duo,” he asked.                 

Heero snorted.  “Duo has a report, and he damn well better finish before Une decides his head will look nice on her wall.  And without him, Wufei and Zechs will either argue or flirt.”               

Satisfied, Trowa nodded and pushed back from his desk.  Heero was already heading for the stairwell.  Trowa snatched his coat from the chair and followed, swinging the coat about his shoulders.  He paused at the door, despite hearing Heero hurrying two flights below.  Duo was at Heero’s desk.  He was running a hand through his hair, looking around as if Heero might pop out of a drawer.  Frowning, Trowa ducked into the stairwell.                

Heero was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, face more relaxed than irritated.  He walked beside Trowa through the cold parking garage at a somewhat-less purposeful pace.  The tension in the fabric of his coat eased as his shoulders lowered and his hands rose ever-so-slightly out of his pockets.              

Lying was not beneath Heero, but it could, apparently, be uncomfortable for him.  And whatever he wanted to talk about was something he wanted Duo so far away from that he not only lied but practically bolted.  It peaked Trowa’s interest.               

There was no snow today, only a hard, biting wind.  Neither of them cared to wait for the pedestrian light.  Heero followed Trowa as he ran lightly across the partially-frozen asphalt at the first available moment and then down the more thoroughly-frozen sidewalk.  The wind snapped the door Trowa had held open shut behind them.               

The café was warm from the ovens and the press of bodies.  Trowa stood near the door for a moment, feeling Heero tighten beside him.  He came here often enough that the number of people—the number of potential but unlikely enemies—didn’t really register any longer.  Trowa let Heero calculate, analyze, and conclude while he searched for a table.  When he found nothing threatening, Heero followed Trowa to a corner table.               

Heero arched an eyebrow when Trowa tossed his coat on the chair.               

“You might not have noticed, but it gets a little busy.  Unless you want to eat standing up, claim your seat.”               

Heero grunted but followed his example.  He took a moment to observe his surroundings apart from bodies and potential escape routes: brightly colored walls, brightly colored tables, brightly colored mod-shaped lamps and knickknacks.                

“I hope their owner isn’t the cook, too,” he muttered.               

Trowa shrugged.  “Food’s good even if the colors aren’t.  Besides, I generally eat at my desk.”               

The crowd was thicker today than usual, so Heero waited at the table—neither of them would put it past someone to knock their coats to the floor—while Trowa ordered lunch.  Waiting would also give Heero plenty of time to reach the same conclusion that Trowa had months ago: that the likelihood of anyone threatening to _them_ working here was under one percent, and that it was simply bad business to try and poison a customer.

Trowa occasionally needed to remind himself of it, but that was only after particularly bad nights.                               

“That is not a peanut butter sandwich,” Heero commented, eyeing the green bundle on Trowa’s plate curiously.               

“It’s a spinach wrap.  Spinach, lettuce, tomato, mozzarella, mushrooms.   Something of a specialty, but they don’t offer it much.  Get your food.”               

Since it wasn’t hot, Trowa waited for Heero.  He blinked when Heero returned with his own spinach wrap but said nothing.  Trowa picked up his sandwich and bit into it, enjoying the play of flavors.  Heero eyed his hands for a moment before copying.  The first bite was tentative.  Then Heero’s eyes widened a fraction.  

The next bite was quite a bit larger.               

Heero wasn’t anti-vegetable, but Trowa knew that his vegetables-as-a-meal preference baffled Heero.  Not that he would say anything, but Trowa caught his occasional confusion at dinner.  For Heero, vegetables simply weren’t filling enough for a meal.  Now, though, Heero seemed to be on the verge of making an exception.               

Trowa wanted to smile but didn’t.  He was a little too offended.               

Quatre and Duo would never use such an underhanded but clever tactic: Quatre because he couldn’t be underhanded if you held a gun to his head, and Duo because as clever as he was, he wasn’t _this_ clever.  And clever it was, to make so many small gestures, to be so considerate, that the thought of denying the giving party _anything_ thing asked would twist the stomach.  Clever, single-mindedness at its best, and just like Heero.               

Trowa was jumping to conclusions.  And he hoped it was only because there _was_ someone in his life so underhanded in his considerations.   This was Heero, after all, who had demanded of himself a quest of redemption.               

But this was also Heero, who would do anything and everything for a certain end.  While he may not fully understand emotion, he was quite good at twisting it.                 

Of course, Quatre and Duo would kill him if that was the point of this.  And they found out.

“Kind of loud in here,” Heero said after a moment.  He tried to make it casual, pushing his plate away and leaning back to observe.  Trowa, however, saw impatience and anxiety in the way the plate scrapped over the table and how tightly Heero’s arms pressed into his stomach.   

He shrugged. “Never really noticed.”

Heero nodded, watching Trowa finish.  Trowa took his time.  He was more than willing to sit here in the headache-inducing noise, because the more Trowa thought about it, the more sense it made, and he was not going to be guilted into—              

“Grab a drink to go?”              

He knew he should say no.  He was allowed; that was the risk that came with Heero’s strategy.  Trowa could doom them both to twenty minutes of awkward silence.  He should.  It would be an appropriate punishment.               

“Sure,” Trowa said.               

Drinks took a good deal less time.  They found themselves outside and shivering much sooner than they had hoped.  Heero headed into the wind, away from headquarters, clutching his coffee cup in both hands.  Trowa followed him with his tea.  After a few steps, he almost wished they were having whatever conversation back in the crowded café.  With the wind cold and howling, Trowa wasn`t sure he was willing to unlock his jaw for anything.               

They hadn`t gone far before Heero ducked under the stone awning of another skyscraper.  It was blessedly quieter, the wind whistling over the edges, and the space itself was empty.  That didn’t make it any warmer, of course.               

Trowa waited until a few gulps of hot liquid had made the stone bearable enough to lean against, and then until Heero`s pointed stare threatened to burn holes into the polished floor.               

“We need to talk,” Trowa reminded him.                

Heero’s eyes narrowed.  Nodding to himself, he rubbed them before turning the penetrating gaze of his on Trowa.  Trowa locked his knees.  He would face whatever accusation was dancing on Heero`s tongue without flinching.  After all, he had agreed to the strategy.  And after that?  Well.   _Then I might throw tea in his face._                

The blue eyes flicked over his face quickly, memorizing Trowa`s expression.  He breathed once before speaking.  “Are you seeing someone?”               

Heero didn`t need to scrutinize a one or two cracks in Trowa’s otherwise expressionless face; Trowa felt his own mouth drop open.  He had expected quite a few things but not that.               

“What?”               

“Are you seeing someone,” he repeated but with a shaken resolve.  Obviously unsettled by the unexpectedly open reaction, Heero dropped his gaze, like he was embarrassed.  Or worse, ashamed.                

“Where`s this coming from?”              

Heero ran a hand through his hair.  “You`ve been different recently.  Distracted.”  When Trowa frowned, Heero straightened.  His expression shifted into the blank stare he used whenever he was retrieving information, or was making reports.  “You`ve taken more calls at work on the last few weeks than I`ve seen you take in six months.  You`ve been  _texting_.”               

“Once, that was once.”               

“You`re reluctant to come home,” he said.  Heero actually flinched from Trowa`s glare.  “More reluctant than, than I`d expect.  And even you are home, you aren`t…there.  So, are you?”           

The faint downturn to Heero’s mouth, the _disappointment_ in his question, like he was some simpering teenage girl denied access to her friend`s choicest piece of gossip, infuriated Trowa. He crushed his empty cup with his foot.               

“I don`t see why I should alert  _you_  to changes in my relationship status.”               

Heero ground his teeth.  “What’s that supposed to mean, Barton?”               

 _Last names now?_ “When you decide to tell me about changes in your love life, Yuy,” Trowa growled, “I’ll tell you about changes in mine.”               

Heero had the decency to look confused and then surprised.  “You heard us.  On New Year`s.”          

Trowa doubted he would have heard them in the next room, let alone on the second floor.  He had been a little preoccupied with the fingers up his ass and the low, heavy voice purring orders in his ear.  Trowa turned away to hide the blush.           

“It`s not what you think,” Heero said.          

“And what is it that I think?”          

“You know how he gets,” he said.  Heero ran a hand through his hair before looking at Trowa with an odd expression.  Sympathetic but unapologetic. “It helps.”          

Heero gave him the most honest (because Trowa did know how Quatre gets) of reasons, and Trowa wanted to hurt him for it.   Trowa needed to because thinking about it—about not being told, not being asked—hurt.  Did they think he would have said no?   That he would deny Quatre  _anything_  that made his heart a fraction lighter?  Did they think he would leave that burden on Heero and Duo?  Abandon them when Quatre swayed on the edge of emphatic insanity?          

 _You would._   Trowa would have fretted and lied, feigned embarrassment or even disgust.  He would have done anything to keep from being exposed.  The weakness sickened him.           

But they hadn’t known then.  They had no reason not to ask him—except not wanting him.              

And that  _hurt._                 

“Just,” Trowa started when he could open his mouth without screaming.  The hollowness in his voice raised Heero`s eyebrows.  “Just tell me if it`s always been like this.”               

Heero blinked twice before his eyes widened a fraction.  His nose scrunched at the thought of their, their arrangement starting after Trowa moved in.  But his voice was carefully neutral when he spoke, which was good.  Trowa might have taken a swing at him otherwise.                

“A couple of months before you moved in.”  Trowa`s throat tightened.  He nodded and turned, watching a piece of litter skitter across the sidewalk.                

Trowa wondered why it felt so much worse, knowing.  It wasn`t like Heero had just admitted it had a New Year’s resolution.  That should have been worse.  So much worse, and yet it wasn’t.  Trowa was chewing hard on his cheek when beside him, Heero sighed.               

“So,” he said carefully.  “Are you?”               

Trowa wanted to say no.  He wanted to enjoy Heero’s flinch, because Trowa was that selfish and petty. 

 _No.  You don`t want him to believe you._   Because Heero would.  A relationship was the perfect explanation, more so because Heero had arrived at it himself.  If Trowa said yes, Heero would back off.  No more lingering glances, no more silent cross-examinations.  He`d be able to let Trowa do as he please, and Trowa would be able to breathe at home.  All he had to do was give up one of the best excuses he had to stay, even momentarily, out of Kader`s apartment and the noose Kader liked slipping around his neck.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Trowa nodded. 

Heero growled, long enough and deep enough to bring Trowa’s head up.  Heero`s face was tight, brow creased, blue eyes flat and dark from the rapid spinning of thoughts.  The expression lasted a few seconds.  Then Heero blinked and nodded.

“A Preventer,” he asked, as if he hadn`t just looked like he was plotting murder.  Trowa folded his arms. 

“I don`t think that matters,” he said.  

Heero nodded.  “Not a Preventer then?”

“Does it matter,” Trowa asked, his sharpness putting Heero on guard. 

“Sounds like it might,” he said.  Trowa snorted. 

“And since when I have been your youngest daughter?”

Heero`s mouth twitched, caught between mirth and discomfort.  He shrugged when it finally smoothed into its usual line.  “Since never.  But—” 

“I don’t need your permission or your approval, Heero.” 

“This isn`t about permission.  It’s—” 

“I’m not a little girl who needs taking care of.  I don`t need you watching my back.” 

Trowa had seen Heero hurt before; he had, after all, nursed him after the self-destruction.  For weeks, every movement, even just a shift in bed, had caused brief contortions of pain.  Occasionally even a hiss.  But Trowa had never seen Heero in skin-whiting, muscle-tightening pain.  Trowa shuddered at the way Heero’s hands clenched and the muscles in his neck stretched with swallowing. 

Heero nodded slowly and turned away.  Trowa’s hands found their way into his pockets.  He didn’t bother to think it was because of the cold. 

“Can I ask you something else,” Heero asked when he could look at Trowa with flat eyes again.  

“Sure,” he muttered. 

“Is it a guy?” 

This time, Trowa managed to keep his mouth shut, but only by clenching his teeth.  Heero waited for him to unlock his jaw and run a hand through his hair. 

“Yeah.” 

Heero nodded curtly and crushed his empty cup with his foot.  

*-----*-----*

“You’re looking particularly furious this evening,” Kader said, setting both glass and file down on the table.  Sneering, Trowa yanked his usual chair out.  He sat down, grabbed the nearest piece of bread, and bit into it savagely.  Kader, eyebrow arched, looked at Nizar who grunted and shrugged.             

“Trouble at work?”               

Not at all.  Work had been perfectly fine after that awkward conversation, aside from occasional narrowed glares, and then stares, and then contemplative glances, coming from one particular desk.  Trowa even got to stay until the appointed 7 P.M. meeting time with little more than a huff from Duo.  All thanks to Heero.               

Trowa tore the bread in half with his teeth.               

A normal person—vengeful, perhaps, after suffering as heavy a blow as the one Trowa had given him—would have tried to make it difficult.  He might have let the boyfriend’s existence “slip” in front of housemates and coworkers.  But Heero wasn’t normal, which had to be why he leashed Duo (on the verge of a mild tantrum because hadn’t Trowa just finished forced overtime) in and let Trowa stay with a shrug and patient reminder that Trowa needed to eat dinner.  _The bastard._                

Heero believed him, just like Trowa worried he would.  But Trowa had expected Heero to leave him to his own devices.  Turn a blind eye on his “new” behavior, as it were.  _Not be a damn facilitator._   He couldn’t reject the unspoken “help,” either, not without triggering suspicions and scrutiny that would have made the last few weeks seem pleasant.               

 _Get used to matchmaker-Heero.  You might even want to smile._ Trowa stabbed the serving fork into a plate of broccoli. 

“Well,” Kader said, pushing himself from the table.  “I was going to wait but now might be the best time.”              

Trowa wondered what he meant, eating his dinner savagely.  Kader returned shortly with a box wrapped in red and green paper.  Trowa blinked.  The paper even had holly and sleigh bells on it.  Kader couldn’t be that stupid.               

“It’s customary to give a gift at Christmas, is it not,” Kader asked.              

“Christmas is over.”               

Kader’s smile darkened.  “I was under the impression that ‘it was the thought that counts.’  Not the day.”                 

Trowa snatched the box out of his hands, if only to keep his hands away from the knife and fork so conveniently close to Kader’s thighs.  The box was smooth in his hands, and heavy.  Pushing back from the table, Trowa set it o gently into his lap.  He stared at the papered lid with mingled curiosity and dread.  Kader’s fingers twitched towards him.  Trowa quickly lifted the lid and pushed aside the tissue paper.               

The sheet music was bright against the red tissue paper and polished wooden flute case.  Trowa fingered through the pages: Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Handel.  Compositions and scores he already had shuffled with ones he had been eyeing.  His fingers drifted towards the case.  The wood, stained a warm, flawless honey, was warm and smooth beneath his fingers.  There were no etchings or adornments, save for brass hinges and clasp and a single, faintly curved groove on the lid: a deliberate and loving imperfection by the crafter.               

It was something Trowa would have gladly gotten himself.  It was a sensible, and sensitive.  It was a gift that showed careful thought and intimate concern towards the receiver.  Trowa swallowed, trying to crush the heat rising in his face.               

Trowa lingered over the purchasing of all his gifts to the point of driving Catherine insane.  Knives, and worse guns, were not acceptable Christmas gifts to her.  But she had let him silently fuss over the switchblades and pistols, the butterfly knives and glocks, because there was a feel he was looking for he would not force.               

He expected it was the same for the others.  There had to be a sense of appropriateness, of perfection, in a gift.  It had to match.  It had to fit.  The Celtic-carved butterfly knife and glock had fit.  The blue vest (because Quatre might have strangled him if he got him a gun and Catherine knew much more about clothes than he did) had fit.  The case fit.  And it shouldn’t.  Kader shouldn’t care about the fit.             

The fact that he did frightened Trowa.                

Trowa muttered “thank you” low enough that Kader wouldn’t be able to hear how high his voice was.  He busied himself with the tissue paper so he wouldn’t be tempted to look at the face that went with Kader’s chuckle.  Trowa’s knuckles brushed against something hard.  He peeled back two edges.  Trowa stared for several seconds before shoving the box away.              

Kader caught the box before it hit the floor.  “Of course,” he said with a white-toothed leer, lifting the vibrator from its tissue-lined hiding place, “you must give yourself a gift, too.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep face palming while editing. My writing.. Oh my writing.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trowa realizes that things might be exactly what they appear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: 
> 
> This chapter contains relatively graphic depictions of the abuse of a minor. If you do not wish to read, please skip the fourth section (the end of a section is denoted by *-----*-----*, so do not read the section the third occurrence of that symbol).
> 
> This chapter contains violence, swearing, situations of dubious consent and torment via taser.

 

Trowa didn’t need to speak Farsi to know that Kader was cursing.  Trowa dropped into pilot mode so quickly that by the time Nizar reached the paper-covered coffee table, Trowa knew he was about as noticeable as a lamp.               

A much better state of mind than the one where he wondered if he could strangle Heero without getting shot.                            

Nizar snatched the phone from a pacing, hissing Kader.  He shooed Kader away while barking into the phone.  Nizar stopped suddenly.  He blinked and mumbled.  He blinked again and started to pace.  On the third circuit, when his back was to Kader’s white-toothed sneer, he started cursing.                

Trowa almost immediately lost interest in Nizar.  Without knowing Farsi, there was little he could learn, apart from Nizar being a pacer and tending to twist his free hand into trigger shapes.  But Kader moved with an agitation completely foreign to Trowa.  He paced in small, tight circles while thumbing restlessly through papers he had scooped up from the coffee table.  The muscles in his jaw tightened with each flip.  If he was closer, Trowa was sure he would hear his teeth grinding.               

But the narrowed eyes never actually moved.  Kader burned two, sightless holes into the exact same spot on every page.  At some point in his pacing, his hand started to rise until it rested by his chin.  Then further, until it was near his lips, which then parted so he could gnaw on his thumbnail.                

_I could use this_ , Trowa realized as he watched Kader throw nervous, seeking glances at Nizar _._ If he could learn how to nudge Kader into this state—where only gruff but oddly paternal gestures from Nizar cleared his eyes and freed his thumb from sharp teeth—maybe he could wiggle his way out of this insanity.  Or at the very least bring some semblance of balance back to his life.               

And eventually allow Trowa to file an anonymous DOA report for the Preventers.                

Trowa became distinctly aware, while tilting his head at the way Kader sucked his lip between his teeth and sawed, of the duffle bag still on his shoulder.  Even half-empty, it pulled on his right side, making stepping—and exposure—too much of a risk.  Slowly he brought his hand to the strap and eased it down his arm.  The nylon whispered through his fingers as the bag lowered.  Kader’s head snapped around.              

Trowa bit back a curse.  He was out of practice.                

Kader’s face straightened into its usual smirk quicker than Trowa expected.  If he hadn’t seen it himself, Trowa would have never guess that Kader had been close to biting through his own lip.  Kader stuffed the papers casually under his arm.               

“There you are.  It’s been a while,” he said, as if he hadn’t dragged Trowa off to bed earlier in the week, or woken him twice with late phone calls.  Kader tilted his head.  “You’re looking a little pale.  Unhappy being out of the house?”               

Trowa ground his teeth.  If Heero wasn’t so damn helpful while the troupe was still around to provide “cover.”  Distraction thoroughly destroyed, Trowa folded his arms and shrugged.               

Kader shook his head once.  “How was the ride over?”               

Apart from the jaw ache he gave himself from imagining the chains over his bike cutting through the old, thin towels that separated them? “Fine.”               

“Then act like it.  You act like he stuffed you in a trunk.”               

That sounded good.  Plenty of air and no blindfold.  “I don’t like cars.”               

“It’s a truck.”               

“It has doors and a steering wheel.”               

“You drove transport trucks before.”               

“Doesn’t mean I liked it.”               

Kader rolled his eyes.  “Is there anything you do like?”               

Trowa, sneering, dropped down for his bag.  When he rose, Kader had already closed the distant.  He caught Trowa’s jaw with his fingers, and squeezed when Trowa reared back and clenched his fists.               

“Besides motorcycles and music, that is.” The grip loosened just enough that Trowa couldn’t bite the thumb stroking his jaw.  “Vegetables.”  Kader grinned.  Trowa swallowed and the smile widened.  “Turning cutlery on me.”               

Trowa clenched his teeth as the thumb neared his lips.  Kader chuckled at Trowa’s straining self-restraint, nudging Trowa’s locked knees with his own.  _I will not bite, I will not kick._                

Kader’s thumb spread apart his lips and pushed against his teeth.  Trowa took too long to unclench his jaw.                

“I was thinking cake tonight.  Would you like that?  We can have a nice, big knife to play with today.”               

Nizar let out a string of curses Trowa barely heard over the angry buzzing in his ear.  By the time Nizar had finished, however, Kader was well out of punching range, let alone biting.                

“Unfortunately,” Kader said, removing the papers from under his arm, “that will have to wait until I finish some unexpected business.  Shouldn’t take more than an hour or two.  Go make yourself comfortable,” he said, thumbing through the ruffled corners.  “I’ll come to the bedroom just as soon as I’m done.”               

Trowa stared long enough that Kader had to acknowledge him.  He put a bit more force behind his shooing hand.  Trowa stiffened.  Kader tilted his head.  When he did nothing more than fist the shoulder strap, Kader shifted towards the couch and waited, tapping his foot.  _Like I’m some indulged brat on the verge of a temper tantrum._                

But if he could break the bastard’s nose in the process.  _Because you’ve been so successful so far._

Blanking his face, Trowa turned.  Kader muttered behind him; Trowa could practically hear the eye roll.  Once in the hall, Trowa stopped and let the angry flush light his face.  He glared between the bedroom, the living room, and the locked door between them.                

It was not the only room he hadn’t been in, but it was the only one locked.  Trowa didn’t doubt it was Nizar’s and that he would more-likely-than-not find some very useful things in it.  Or at least something to substitute for a skull.  He was no Duo but there were a few paperclips in the bottom of his bag.  It would take less than five minutes.               

And in that five minutes, Kader or Nizar could cross just a little too close to the door in their hurried, hissing conversation, and he would find himself not only in the bedroom but probably tied to the bed with that damn vibrator up his ass.  Again.                

Trowa didn’t slam the bedroom door, but it was only with the greatest of effort.               

He took a quick look around, noting the hurried bed-making and lack of gun on the dresser, before dropping his bag and stamping towards the clean desk.  Even if there wasn’t anything useful, there had to be scissors or a letter opener he could use to ruin something.  Like the books in the corner.               

“What are you, seven,” Trowa muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “At this rate you’re going to deserve a damn spanking.”              

Because he was not running of the room in search of soap—not that he had said _anything_ —Trowa sat at the desk to search the drawers like a normal person.                

The schematics were gone.  He had hoped to find them in one of the drawers, stuffed underneath notebooks, pens, and English-Farsi/Arabic/Egyptian dictionaries.  In one of the side drawers, he did find what looked to be emails and few reports.  Trowa could only read three of them.  One he supposed could be in English, except it only had a time.  The other two were written in such horrible French he wasn’t sure he could read it.                                

Trowa flipped through the reports and a dictionary for a full ten minutes before pushing both away.  Until he learned the Farsi alphabet—and he wasn’t sure how to study squiggles—               

He paused and looked over at the book-lined corner.  The likelihood of finding anything even remotely resembling an elementary language textbook was less than a hundredth.  And that was rounding up.  Still, Trowa gathered up the topmost report and a likely dictionary.  He dumped them in the chair and looked at the shelves.               

Even without being able to read Farsi, Trowa knew it was pointless.  No bright colors and characters, no curlicue titles.  Just dull reds and browns, an occasional blue.  Most of the shelves were stuffed with leather-bound volumes as thick as his hand, the spines cracking from use.  The new versions were at eye-level, but even they were too dark and too thick to be anything but beyond advanced.               

So much for thinking Kader had any sort of sentimentality.                

He was going to stuff the report in his bag and put the dictionary back when he saw it: a strip of faded pink poking out between some pages, two shelves down.   Trowa bent and pulled the book out.  Book glue fluttered down from behind the half-severed spine.  He thumbed the fraying corners of the cover before turning it over in his hands.  Pieces of countries had peeled away from the globe on the cover.  

He had no idea why Kader would keep a history book and not, say, a collection of children’s stories, but it was something of a start.  Trowa opened it carefully.              

There was a bit more English than he would have thought, but Trowa was too distracted by the explosion of handwriting to notice.               

There was faded pencil or ink on nearly every page.  So much sometimes that, had he been _able_ to read Farsi, Trowa would have struggled to see the printed text through the mess.  That didn’t surprise him.  He was well aware notation inside one’s own books was perfectly appropriate.  In some cases, encouraged.  What surprised him was that there were two distinct sets.               

He recognized Kader’s right away by the interchangeable, and sometimes totally illegible, way he wrote his fours and nines.  It appeared to have gotten a little better as he grew. _But not by much._ The other was Kader’s total opposite.  Crisp and small, the letters snuggled and wiggled into every available white space.  They swooped and curled in a totally unnecessary, almost feminine, way.  Did Kader inherit the book from a sister or a female cousin?               

Trowa pressed his fingers together, like he was holding a pencil.  He had learned to change his handwriting years ago, mostly through mimicry and forgery of individual pieces.  He memorized a letter here, a line there, and soon he had a dozen different styles.   Most, however, had ended up too ugly to stay at the forefront of his mind longer than it took to lie on a form.  This one he liked.  The script flowed across the page, almost like smoke.  Trowa started tracing a sentence.               

On the fourth pass, he was comfortable enough with the physical act of memorizing to let his mind wander.  The sentence was underneath a picture of Queen Elizabeth I, if his limited knowledge of English history was accurate at all.  The caption was almost violently blacked out with pen.               

Trowa lifted his hand from the page.  He started tracing the alphabet in the air, watching his hand as it added small wisps to the angles and curves.  After the third time, he let his hand move alone and continued thumbing through the book.                            

She was thorough, whoever this note taker was.  After the fourth picture of royalty or women (or both) with a furiously blacked-out caption, Trowa didn’t doubt it was a woman.  He wondered what the book had to say, if only to learn what she was figuratively spitting at.               

Trowa wasn’t sure how long he sat there, mimicking handwriting and trying to puzzle out the meaning of words he didn’t know.  It was long enough that his wrist started to ache.  Worse, he yawned.               

Trowa looked at the bed, with its slick, cool sheets and its thick, warm duvet.  _And its chains in the bedposts and its manacles under the pillow._  But Kader wasn’t here.                

Sneering, Trowa slouched into the chair.  He crushed the book against his stomach when his back complained, and then had an almost nostalgic thought about the way the mattress curved around his body.               

Trowa dug his fingers in the book spine.  _Think that again and I’ll really give you something to complain about._  

It wasn’t that his own bed was uncomfortable; Trowa had actually been quite satisfied with it until his body learned there were places that didn’t have nightmares.  Now it was an almost nightly struggle to follow asleep—one where nothing short of sedatives, or silk sheets and manacles, would help.               

Trowa was _this_ close to ordering horse tranquilizers.               

The problem was that Trowa couldn’t relax in his own bed.  Not on his own, not with any of the tricks he had used for years.  Right now, nothing short of total, flesh-numbing exhaustion allowed his body to relax enough, and his mind to slow enough, for sleep.  Worse, his body was becoming accustomed to the treatment.  It started flushing with arousal after ten minutes of tossing and panting and tension-induced cramps.               

His body _demanded_ the nightly attention.  Usually twice, sometimes three times but only on particularly rough nights.  And then, once he had exhausted himself enough for sleep, the nightmares started.  They were far worse than his usual bad dreams.  Closer to the night terrors he hadn’t had since before the war, the ones he thought he would never have again. 

Then he joined the Preventers, and then he met Kader.              

_It’s not the bed,_ his mind whispered.  _It’s the--_

_Think it and I’ll drug us so stupid Duo with his dance music isn’t going to wake us up._

The fact that Kader was with him for every restful night Trowa had recently had absolutely _nothing_ to do with it.  After all, Kader had been with him on the bathroom floor and beneath his own sheets, breathing heavily in his ear through the phone.  Trowa hadn’t slept then.  _It’s not the voice,_ it said.  Trowa shoved the quick blush down.  _It’s the arm._

The same one that held Trowa flush against Kader’s chest?  The one that coiled so tightly around his middle that Trowa had to sleep perfectly still, unless he wanted two round in one night?  The arm with the audacious hand that stroked lazy lines and circles across Trowa’s stomach the second he started to shift and whine from—               

It was _not_ the arm.  Trowa could live without that iron bar in bed.                

Trowa shuddered as laughter, a little too much like his own rarely-used snicker, sent a shiver up his spine.  Sneering, Trowa hoisted himself out of the chair.  He flung the book aside before stamping over to the bed.                

It was not the arm, not the warmth, not the man, and he was going to prove it.   Trowa toed off his shoes.  He didn’t need anything but an out-of-his-price-range mattress for a good sleep.  He yanked the covers down, dislodging a pillow in the process.  Huffing, Trowa shoved both handcuffs and chains off the bed.  If Kader insisted on using them, he could pick them up himself.  And he would.         

Trowa flung a pillow down by one of the posts at the end of the bed.  He crawled onto the mattress and pulled the duvet over.  He tucked it clumsily around himself and settled in the warm cocoon.  On his side, Trowa glared at the door, wishing, not for the first time, that it locked from the inside.  Kader liked him awake, though, and preferably kicking, when he chained him to the bed, so at least there would be no surprises.               

Trowa frowned at how little the knowledge bothered him.  He yanked the cover over his head.  

*----*----*               

Trowa only realized he was having a nightmare when he felt pain in his knees instead of his arms.  And his arms _should_ have hurt, considering how hard they were being held back.   His jaw should have hurt, too, and his throat for that matter.  The featureless mercenary was too big for him and plunging too fast down his ten-year old throat.  It was his knees that hurt, though, sharp and real and completely out of place for the scene. 

Of course, knowing he was dreaming didn’t make waking up any easier.  Trowa didn’t fully claw out of it until after the mercenary came and he was momentarily surprised by the lack of throat-choking semen.  By then, he had been moved, and he found his arms held behind him.  Reality and memory blurred but only for a moment.  Reality cleared when he realized he didn’t feel sick enough.  The mercenaries had caught him after dinner, when he had been throwing up.  It had been dusk.  There had been light. 

And it was almost pitch black now.                

Trowa knew he was blindfolded even without the headache building at his temples.  There was only a thin sliver of light at the very bottom of his line of sight, revealing ugly carpet and his own jean-clad thigh.  Trowa flexed.  His wrists and ankles rubbed against metal.  Trowa pulled forward until his hips and shoulders screamed from the angle.  The chains rattled but held hard.               

Easing back, Trowa tilted his head up.  He sneered, less from the position than from being proven wrong.                 

Trowa expected a hand.  He expected Kader to stroke his hair like he was a dog, or rip it out by the roots when he dragged Trowa’s head back.  Trowa expected him to chuckle at the feral, weak noises.  But Kader didn’t.               

He didn’t do anything.  Kader stood somewhere out of sight and breathed.  Trowa’s pulse spiked.  Even when he was balls-deep in Trowa, Kader never panted like that.  Of course, Trowa was usually moaning and screaming by that point, so he might not have noticed.               

The floor creaked.  Kader stepped into the sliver of sight.  His black sock waited, inches away from Trowa’s knee.  His toes curled in the carpet.  Trowa swallowed.  His knees were slightly spread.  Trowa tried to inch them closed.  Kader moved.  Trowa stilled.  He watched Kader pace around him, never more than a few inches from his thighs, just skirting the edge of Trowa’s limited vision.                

_This is a new game,_ Trowa decided on the sixth pass.  His unwillingness to be manhandled into irritating or embarrassing positions was boring Kader.  There was only so much sneering and glaring resignation—and it was resignation, not acceptance, never acceptance—that a person could take.  Kader had obviously reached his limit.  He needed a different torment.                

Damn it all if it wasn’t working.                

Trowa couldn’t stop himself from flinching when Kader suddenly crossed the invisible line.  Kader didn’t chuckle.  He didn’t even tsk.  He stood and _panted,_ loud enough and long enough to make Trowa twist and swallow.  Then a hand tangled in Trowa’s hair.  Kader pulled his head back.  Trowa heard the distinct sound of a zipper.  The hand squeezing his stomach loosened.                

He resisted, of course, rearing back from the head that nudged at his lips, but it lacked most of his usual enthusiasm. One sharp tug on his hair was all it took for Trowa to open his mouth.  The growl he let out was far from convincing.  Trowa tried not to think about what that meant.                

Everything had to feel a little different blindfolded, the same way everything tasted a little different with a head cold.  It was the only way Trowa could explain (without panicking) the unfamiliarity feel and smell.  Even the taste, as he wrapped his tongue around the thick head, seemed off.  _Is there even an “on” taste for a blowjob?_  

It didn’t mean anything.  The problem was a lack of physical memory.  It wasn’t like Kader asked him to suck him off every time.  The head nudged at the back of Trowa’s mouth.  Trowa wasn’t ready.  His throat tightened and his stomach lurched.  For the sake of not throwing up, Trowa stopped trying to explain it.               

Being blindfolded, however, did have an advantage or two.  Without fingers or skin or pubic hair to distract him, Trowa could mental put himself into his favorite hanger easily.  Kader didn’t seem particularly interested in Trowa’s participation (he gripped Trowa’s hair and started thrusting much sooner than last time).  Trowa lay his tongue aside and indulged.               

He could see Heavyarms’ gleaming paint and beautiful tangle of wires.  He felt the heat from the overheads, the hard chill of the scaffolding under him, and the smooth edges of the panel in his hands.   The gatling gun’s chamber reeked of gunpowder and oil.  Trowa breathed deeply.  Setting the panel aside, Trowa shifted closer to check damage—               

Trowa choked as the head suddenly plunged down his throat.  He panicked, gagging around the head lodged in his throat.   The bed creaked.  Trowa’s head was tilted back.  Breathing got a little easier.  The panic eased.  Trowa didn’t dare take a deep breath: not with his nose buried in pubic hair and a cock rocking steadily into his throat.               

_Focus.  Gun maintenance._ The hanger shifted back into focus.  Panel off and cartridges accounted for—he was never going to forgive Heero for wasting _his_ bullets—Trowa started meticulous dismantlement and cleaning.  He flinched as something creaked distantly.  Maybe he should see about tightening the scaffolding joints first.  _Might want to dim the lights while I’m at it._   The hanger was normally warm, but today the overheads were almost suffocating.  Sweat trickled down the back of Trowa’s sweaters like fingers—               

Kader ripped out of his throat.  Trowa struggled not to vomit, a nauseated cold sweat beading across the back of his neck.  He heaved, stomach clenching, throat tight, for several seconds.  When his throat began to loosen, Kader came back.  His hands slipped across his shoulders and down his chest.  They pushed up his sweater and burrowed down into his jeans. Trowa squirmed under the frantic scurrying.   Something thin and metallic and cold brushed against his penis before coming to rest between his legs.  Trowa shivered even after it warmed against his slit.                  

“So that’s the big secret.”               

At first, Trowa thought it was one of the guards, but then he immediately dismissed the idea.  He had heard their English.  While clear, it was heavily accented.  

Who else had access to the bedroom?  Nizar?  Trowa almost snorted.  He would sooner be feeling brains, then, oozing down his back. 

But who it was didn’t actually matter.  All that mattered was that it was not that bastard, because that bastard never wore rings (apart from a large, ugly signet Nizar occasionally insisted on.  And Kader almost always had something of a small tantrum when he mentioned it), and his English wasn’t quite as accented, and he already _knew_.  

Whoever-it-was had managed to push Trowa’s jeans down while he had been thinking and almost-panicking. The denim bunched uncomfortable around his knees.  The man was still panting.  Trowa lunged towards the heavy sound with his head.  He missed.  The first clasp of his corset came undone.  Trowa’s wrists and ankles burned as he pulled and twisted.  He felt blood dripping along his palm.   The second and third clasps popped open.                

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” whoever-it-was purred.  Trowa had heard it before, the low, lilting accent, heavy but familiar.  European?  English?   The name danced just out of reach.  “Just relax, and it won’t hurt”               

He was breathing in Trowa’s right ear.  His large fingers ran slowly down Trowa’s exposed spine.  His other hand gripped the corset’s front, right between Trowa’s still-covered breasts.               

Trowa turned into the voice with bared teeth.               

He tasted blood, skin, and cologne without cringing.  Through the yeowling, Trowa heard his own pulse and a low sound he dimly recognized as a snarl.  His snarl.  The man’s fingers dug and pushed, clawing at Trowa’s skin.  Trowa clenched his teeth.  Even when one of the hands abandoned its attempt to snap Trowa’s ribs and started ripping at his scalp instead, Trowa held on.  The blood lost its taste.  The hand left.  Trowa felt sharp, feral glee.               

Pain, brief and sharp, flared in Trowa’s side.  He gasped sharply and flinched away.  The pain jumped to the other side and licked at his kidney.  Trowa squirmed away, into a slap.  The third shot of pain tongued his stomach.  This time, Trowa heard the crackle.  He shifted away from the taser, backing into the bed.  The man tugged Trowa forward by the hair.               

“Fucking bitch,” he growled, yanking Trowa’s head back and shoving hard plastic beneath his chin.  “You should be fucking thanking me.”               

Trowa’s rapid analysis—how much voltage _did_ it take for a taser to cause serious nerve or brain damage when put so close to the brainstem—screeched to a halt.  _Thank_ him?  He almost growled, but didn’t.  Instead Trowa went slack.  He even managed to unlock his jaw.  The man let out a short, appreciative grunt.   His hand left Trowa’s hair.  The penis returned.  Trowa recognized the smell.  Baring his teeth, Trowa snapped at the head.               

Trowa got nothing, but the man still yelped.  Trowa followed the noise, twisting and snapping without thought.  On his third try, when he was starting to growl, Trowa saw white.              

Once, when he had been young and stupid, Trowa caught a live wire.  For a brief moment, his body had been a torch, the white-hot center of it grasped in small but valuable hands.                

Trowa hadn’t felt that pain right away.  He had become flame, unconscious of his own lethal heat until one of the mechanics ripped him from the wire.  It was another day before his paralyzed nerves recovered even a fraction of sensation.   By then, Trowa had been on round-the-clock pain medication.                

Trowa felt everything now.  The fire wasn’t in his skin; it was under it, tearing through veins and muscles.  It licked and split nerves, doubling the ends, dragging out the pain.  Trowa’s head lolled back, mouth open as the white-hot center of the it barreled up his spine from between his legs.  It bumped against the scream trapped in his throat.               

Trowa, overly aware of his own trembling and the smothered groan creeping out, choked on that scream until the third bolt.  The white pain pushed through and rushed up the last few inches of his spine. 

Then he screamed and didn’t stop.        

*-----*----* 

In his many years of service, Nizar had learned to expect a few things: the stupidity of the influential, the infantilism of the wealthy, the perpetual dissatisfaction of the ruling family.  Humans never changed, and people in power less so.  He had found it prudent to learn how to anticipate the actions and reactions of his superiors.  It had saved his jaw quite a bit of pain.                

But Fahd, the exception to almost every rule, never ceased to surprise him.  So when Fahd bolted from the room, Nizar didn’t do much more than stare, reports fluttering around him in Fahd’s wake.               

Nizar ran a hand over his face.  Even as a child, Fahd had never been this volatile.  _It’s that damn mutt._ He was tempted, as he sneered at the mess, to collect and organize the reports.  It would take at least half an hour.  Curiosity, however, got the better of him.  People normally didn’t scream like that.               

He walked casually down the hall to the bedroom just in time to see the redhead fly headfirst into one of the side tables.  It was one of the ugly Western ones that came with the penthouse.  The Preventer-turned-informant groaned and lifted himself carefully from the wood.  Nizar watched him until he was sure there was no serious injury and then continued to the bedroom.               

The boy had stopped screamed.  Nizar almost wished he hadn’t.  His high, hysterical crying was much worse.  Fahd was kneeling beside him.  He was trying to uncurl him from his fetal position, pulling at the mutt’s tightly pressed knees and the trembling hands between his legs.  The boy rocked sideways as he struggled against Fahd.  His knee flipped the taser near it.               

Nizar flinched in momentary sympathy.                

“Nizar,” Fahd barked.  Nizar hurried to the dresser and yanked open the middle drawer.  He cursed when he didn’t find the first aid underneath the ceremonial robe Fahd flat-out refused to wear.  After dismantling the rest of the middle, and then the top, drawers, he finally found the kit.   In the bottom drawer, underneath among some gags.  Nizar shook his head once and yanked it out.               

Nizar dropped down beside the two and helped Fahd pry the boy’s knees apart.  He screeched as Nizar shifted between the trembling legs.  He couldn’t quite kick with Nizar there, but the squirming was just as irritating.                

“Stop it,” Nizar growled.               

He tossed his head.  “Promised, promised, you promised.”              

“I didn’t promise anything, stay still.”              

“You did!  If I didn’t kick, you said!”               

Nizar glanced up at the boy’s face.  His eyes were wider than normal, ringed with long, wet lashes.  They were lighter, too, the almost yellowish-green of sun sickened grass.  He almost flinched at the ugly color.  He didn’t though, because it was only a thin band of ill green surrounding large, black pupils.  .               

Nizar had never been happier that he had added sedatives to the first aid kit than right now.                

The boy, of course, didn’t appreciate it.  The second he saw the needle, he started thrashing as much and as hard as pain and hysteria allowed.  The tantrum lasted nearly ten minutes, and only ended when Fahd nearly crushed the boy’s wind pipe.  He stilled just long enough that Nizar could stab the needle in his arm.                 

Neither Nizar nor Fahd moved until those dull eyes rolled back.  Then Fahd leaned back for a moment.  He watched the boy before gathering him carefully into his arms.  His limp head rolled weakly onto Fahd’s shoulder.  As Fahd carried him to bed, he whined softly about broken promises.  Fahd shushed him and laid him out on the mattress.                

Fahd was pulling the sheets over the boy’s thighs, and Nizar was deciding how to treat genital burns, when the floor near the door creaked.  Fahd and his informant stared at each for a moment.  Fahd’s lip curled.  The informant shrank back.  Chains and manacles flew out of the way as Fahd lunged at him.  The informant backpedaled out of the room.  In the hall, there was the sharp splintering of breaking furniture.              

Nizar tucked the sheet around the dazed pilot’s shoulders.  It was probably better to wait for a doctor.              

“We only have one informant in the Preventers, my lord,” Nizar sighed as he stepped into the hall.  Fahd didn’t seem to particularly care.  He kept his arm tight around the redhead’s neck.  Choking him, however, didn’t seem very satisfying.  Fahd shoved him away soon enough.  Sneering, he turned and headed back towards the bedroom.              

“But you,” their informant gasped, one hand against his throat and the other on the wall, “you asked.”               

Fahd stopped at the door.  Nizar sighed.  The idiot had been that close from escaping.  Nizar saw Fahd’s hand twitch.  He spread his arms to make ripping the gun from the holster easier on Fahd and his coat.               

Their informant didn’t say anything as Fahd held the gun inches from his forehead.  He didn’t move either.  Fahd had to cock it before the man started to kneel, the barrel never leaving the space between his eyes.                                

“One reason why I shouldn’t kill you,” Fahd growled.               

He swallowed. “But you, you said.”               

Kader pushed hard on his shoulder with his foot, shoving the man onto the floor.  The barrel of the gun moved slowly over the informant’s body, deciding on its target.  Head, chest, crotch.  Head.  Chest.               

“You think with the wrong parts,” Fahd said with a thin smile.  “Removing them should make you a bit smarter.”              

“It will make him dead,” Nizar said. “And the Preventers suspicious.”                

“He’ll live.”               

“Not long.”               

Fahd sneered.  Nizar frowned.  The boy couldn’t honestly be important enough to kill the man, could he?  _He might_.  The thought was unsettling. 

Finally Fahd grumbled, lowering the gun and kicking the man’s trembling thighs.  “Get up.”  The man scrambled up astoundingly fast, considering his size.  He pressed his forehead into the floor near Fahd’s feet.  

“I want everything,” Fahd said, walking away from the man and returning Nizar’s gun to its holster. “You have two weeks.  Or I will take it.”                

“O, of course, my lord.”               

“Get out.”               

Nizar waited until the front slammed after the heavy, fleeing footfalls.  “Satisfied,” he asked softly.               

“Don’t,” Fahd snarled.               

“I don’t know what you expected—”                           

“Nizar.”              

“—giving such a stupid order.”               

“Don’t you have a phone call to make,” he sneered.  He brushed past Nizar and headed into the bedroom.                

Fahd didn’t bother to shut the door.  He walked up to the bed and stretched out beside the unconscious pilot.  Leaning up on his elbow, Fahd watched him, reaching out occasionally to move the hair that fell into the pilot’s face every time he tossed.  Somehow, Nizar managed to keep his surprise out of his voice as he phoned on of the base doctors.  Even when Fahd’s fingers lingered on the boy’s cheeks, his lips.  Even when Fahd heaved an almost guilty sigh.   

Somehow, somewhere, the boy had become important to Fahd.  That much was obvious; Nizar just wasn’t sure what the boy _was_.  Because in spite of the tender caresses and the apparent guilt, Fahd’s eyes still glowed with their usual possessiveness.  The body before him was still “his,” tool and toy.  Something to bend to his will.  His latest project. 

Just milder, and tinged with something that looked too much like affection to be completely safe. 

Nizar shoved the phone in his pocket and, with one last furrowed look at the two, turned and headed for the living room.  The reports needed to be fix, and as long as he could stop this from becoming a disaster, whatever the boy was to Fahd didn’t particularly matter.

He just hoped he could stop it. 

*----*-----*              

“Again?  God damn it, Evan, you promised.”               

It took him a minute to realize Doc was talking to the captain, and another to realize that he didn’t like it.  Captain didn’t like it much, either.  The grip on his arm tightened enough for bruises.               

“Just do your job, Matthew,” he said.               

“Why,” he asked, running smooth hands over an equally-smooth face and blonde hair.  “So he can come back tomorrow?  In a few hours?   It’s a waste of my time and my stitches.”               

“You can’t leave him like this.”                      

“Three days.  They couldn’t wait three days.  He’s still wearing the goddamned bandage.”               

“Just stitch him up.”               

“I don’t want to be stitched up,” he muttered, pulling on the captain’s grip.  Captain yanked back hard enough that he stumbled sideways.                

“I can’t have you bleeding all over camp.”               

He wouldn’t have bled over camp.  He would have bled all over the crates the mechanics had left him on.  Of course, those had been clip crates.  The blood might have ruined them.  They would never leave him alone if there was nothing to shoot.               

Doc frowned at them, leaning forward in his chair.  His narrow blue eyes ran slowly along the edge of his skin.  He swallowed and looked away, as if lack of eye contact could protect him from Doc’s too-thorough once over.               

“Get him on the cot,” he sighed.               

He was still too skinny.  Captain could pick him up and carry him, if he wanted.  If he struggled, Captain would, regardless of his back.  It was a good thing he was getting dizzy; pulling and dragging his heels just a little didn’t bother Captain much.  Doc dumped all-too-familiar tools and bottles next to him before pulling up his shirt.  He hissed as the stained cotton stuck. 

“What the hell did they do?” 

“You ask that every time.” 

“Does that look razor-made to you?”               

“Maybe a dull one,” Captain suggested after a moment.               

He didn’t think it had been a razor.  Razor cuts, even from dull razors, usually didn’t hurt until after he was already bleeding.  It was a slower pain, too, a sting that sharpened into hurt.  Unless they pulled at it.  Then it hurt much sooner.  What they used today had hurt right away.  It pulled while cutting.  Actually, he wouldn’t mind if they used whatever-it-was more often.  It had taken a lot less time for his back to numb.               

The belt numbed him pretty fast, too, but he would take razors over the belt any day.               

“This has got to stop.” Doc said, reaching for a vial near his hip.  He didn’t need to see it to know what the clear liquid was for.  He squirmed and pulled.  Captain yanked his shirt over his head, bending him forward to keep his fists down.                 

“I’ll talk to them.”               

“You better do more than talk,” Doc said.  He flinched away from the hand suddenly on his back.               

“I don’t want it!”               

Captain pressed down on the back of his head until his mouth hit his knees.  “What more do you want?”              

“This has to stop.  He’s—” The needle nudged still sensitive skin.               

“Do it without!”               

“And have you crying the whole time,” Doc asked.  The needle slipped under his skin.               

He felt the cold sharpness of the needle and then the hotter one of the medicine.  Then he didn’t feel much at all.  The mix was already starting.  Heavy and light, like he was in two different places, and one of those places was very high, and neither was safe.               

Distantly, he felt the poke and pull of the needle.  He tried to count the stitches, blinking hard when he missed one.  One, two, four.  Blink.  Three, four, seven.  Blink.  Twelve.  Thirteen.  Thirty.  But then the high place drifted a little higher and counting was too hard.               

“I’m not sewing him up again.”               

“Right.”               

“I’m serious.  Bring him like this again, and I’ll let him bleed.”              

Captain was silent for a moment.  “I’ll talk to them.”                

“Uh huh,” Doc muttered.  The next pull was hard enough that he almost flinched.               

“With my fists.  First thing.”               

“What’s wrong with now?”               

He snorted.  “They’re drunk.”               

“Perfect.  Maybe they’ll agree to getting shot if they do it again.”               

“You want me to lose all my best men?”             

“We won’t lose him.”              

Captain didn’t say anything.  No one did.  After a while, he heard a low swoosh and twang.  Then again, and again.  It took him a while to realize it was Doc stitching.  Captain must have left already.               

He wasn’t high enough not to be scared.               

At least Doc waited until the stitches were covered with fresh bandages.  Then Doc pulled him up slowly and lowered his shirt.  He tried to squirm away from Doc’s hands and ended up falling sideways.  Doc left with his tools and the empty vial.  He heard them clatter on the desk before Doc opened and closed the trunk next to it.  He gripped the cot, pressing his feet against the edge after a few tries.  He could do it.  It didn’t matter where he ran.                

“What have I told you about shoes on the mattress,” Doc asked, grabbing his ankle.  He tightened his grip on the sheets and pulled. Doc pulled back.  He twisted, sheets bunching underneath him, until he heard the crackling and felt a distant but familiar pain on his thigh.  He yelped.              

“Stop kicking,” Doc growled.  “And this goes away.”                

He wasn’t sure he could.  He still knew.  He felt his pants being undone and pushed down and knew that they were.  He saw Doc putting a new disk into the recorder and knew what was coming.  If he tried hard enough, he knew could get his brain to say “kick” and his feet would eventually respond.  He wasn’t far enough away.               

And he wanted to be very far away if Doc ever turned the taser on him like he threatened.                

Doc pushed his knees apart until his feet dangled off the cot.  They felt too heavy to lift.  Doc set the recorder down at the end of the cot and picked up a thin, metal rod.              

“Disc seven, August 12.”  Doc turned the rod over in his fingers.  Shuddering, he turned his face into the mattress.  “We continue with examining subject’s dual urinary tract.”               

He sucked cloth into his mouth and bit. 

*-----*-----* 

Trowa didn’t think he had ever been in so much pain.  Even being blown up by a Zero-controlled Quatre hadn’t hurt quite like this.  His entire body ached without favoritism after Vayeate, which hadn’t bothered him quite as much as not remembering why.  Or his name for that matter.  Now, though, the pain was centralized: a hard, burning knot of agony that sent waves of lesser pain to the rest of him.               

He stared across the sheets through lidded eyes.  The limited view kept him from panicking.  He knew the answer to the “why” spinning in his head lurked at the edge, pacing the blank edges of his limited vision.  Trowa didn’t pursue it.  It would sharpen the pain, and he thought it was sharp enough already.  But then the body at the edge of the bed turned.  The pain between his legs flared.                

Kader, fingers so gently pressed against the worn cover not a moment before, tossed the tattered history book back onto the chair.  When he stepped closer, Trowa shifted back.  He gasped as his feet caught.              

“Untie me,” he snarled, voice cracking.  He pulled on the chains binding his ankles.              

“Don’t,” Kader said.  Trowa growled and rolled onto his stomach.  He thrust trembling arms beneath himself.    
Body too heavy for himself, he still tried to push himself up. Kader nudged his hip.  Trowa crumpled to the mattress.               

“Will you stop,” He asked, moving Trowa back onto his side.  Trowa squirmed as Kader peeled down the duvet.  “You’re not supposed to move the pillow.”               

Holding Trowa’s bound legs apart by the knee, Kader grabbed a pillow that had somehow made it from the headboard all the way down to Trowa’s shins.   He folded it in half and stuffed it securely between Trowa’s thighs.  He even fixed the robe Trowa didn’t remember putting on, tucking the too-long cloth around his legs and back beneath his side before covering him up.             

Trowa found himself becoming less angry and more confused.  And worryingly appreciative.              

“The doctor said there had to be as little friction as possible, so don’t move that again.”               

“What doctor?”               

“The doctor Nizar who looked at you.”               

Trowa didn’t remember a doctor.  He remembered dreaming about a doctor, if you could call a sadistic mercenary medic a doctor.  But he had taken off the white coat that night.  He worked in shirtsleeves and khakis.  Trowa remembered how the fabric scratched.  Underneath that, though, there was something: a fleeting memory of a white coat.  Trowa latched onto the fading memory.  There were needles and gibberish, strong arms and legs holding him open as he babbled and bucked.  The coat.               

Fine.  So there had been a doctor.  Trowa clung to the fact to try and stop his spinning head.               

“I didn’t ask for a doctor.”               

“Because you were in the perfect condition for asking, shrieking on my bedroom floor.”              

Trowa sneered. “You’re the one who shoved—” his voice cracked.  The word died in his throat.  _Doctor.  Focus on the doctor._ “I never said—”             

“That,” Kader said, his voice miserable enough to force Trowa’s mouth to drop open, “was not supposed to happen.”                

“Then what was,” Trowa asked when he managed to close his mouth again.               

“Nothing.  I expected to find you sleeping.  Possibly sulking.”               

He was lying.  He _had_ to be.  Kader had taken far too long to answer, and hesitation was one of lying’s easiest tells.  _In guilt and shame, too._ Kader didn’t look particularly guilty or ashamed.  Maybe a little unhappy.  Maybe a little disappointed.  And, if Trowa really looked, more than a little furious.               

_He’s lying.  He has to be._

Kader shifted when the awkward silence was too much, moving closer to Trowa, reaching out.  Trowa flinched and swatted wearily as Kader brushed his forehead with the back of his hand.              

“Your fever’s going down,” he said.  He nodded once to himself before getting up.                

Trowa watched his back, frowning.  A fever explained a lot: the weakness, the dizziness, the confusion.  And he was confused.  Just confused.  The fever was making him see things and think things that simply weren’t true.  Kader wasn’t guilty.  Kader was incapable of guilt.  If Kader wasn’t guilty, then there was no reason for the strange clenching in Trowa’s chest.  There was no reason for his absolutely, unequivocally _insane_ desire to—               

“The pain killers must be wearing off,” Kader said.  “Here.”               

Trowa didn’t ask what it was.  He didn’t even struggle when Kader insisted on helping Trowa lift his head so he could take the pill and a sip of water.  Trowa wanted to sleep.  Pain killers were good for sleep.  And the sooner he slept, the sooner the fever went away, the sooner everything made sense again and he stopped thinking Kader was anything but an extortionist bastard who was making his life miserable.               

Trowa slept, deeply thanks to the pills, but they didn’t stop him from thinking.  They weren’t nightmares, the dreams he had each time the painkillers dragged his consciousness down; they couldn’t be.  He didn’t wake up gasping or screaming or clutching his chest as his heart thudded.  The medicine-dreams were awkward: slightly uncomfortable, slightly dangerous.  The details always slipped away, faster the tighter Trowa tried to hold them.  He always woke feeling that he had something crucial.  The next dose always took that feeling, and others, away.  It returned though, every time and stronger.               

The next time he woke, though, particularly groggy and with a headache, he didn’t really dwell on what he might have lost.  He couldn’t, what with all the yelling. 

“No.”              

“You’re being ridiculous.”               

“I said no.”               

“Do you have any idea what will happen?”               

“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand, Nizar?”               

“Shut up,” Trowa hissed.  Eyes shut tight against the light and the noise, he clawed at the space around his head.   Someone pushed a pillow against his hand.  Trowa snatched it up and covered his head.               

Kader chuckled softly.  “Go back to sleep.”                

“Don’t encourage him.”                

“Just ignore him,” Kader said.  Trowa planned on it.  He pushed the pillow hard over his ear.               

“For the love of Allah—”             

“Enough, Nizar.”              

“—he’s been here too long.”               

Trowa frowned underneath the cool fabric.  He tried to count the number of times he had woken, and then he tried to use the slippery figure to figure out the minutes—or rather hours—between each one.  Trowa eased the pillow off his head.                               

“What time is it,” he asked.               

“Five in the evening,” Kader said.  “So go back to sleep.” 

Trowa’s brow furrowed.  “On?”               

Kader sighed.  “Sunday.”               

Trowa could have kicked himself.               

“Untie me.”              

“Go back to bed.”                           

“I can’t.”               

“I’ll get the painkillers.”               

“I don’t want painkillers,” Trowa spat.  He propped himself up on his elbows before attempting a full sit.  “I have to go.”               

“Because you’re going to get so far,” Kader said after the pain strangled a gasp out of Trowa.  Trowa sank back to the mattress.  “The only reason you’re getting out of this bed is for a hospital trip.”               

Trowa and Nizar snorted.               

“Unless you want Heero kicking down your door—”              

Kader smirked. “I always wanted to see zero-one in action.”               

“Would you like to see the Preventers’ special task force,” Nizar growled.  “Because that’s exactly who you’ll see after I shoot Yuy in the head.  And then the inside of a high-security prison.”              

Kader grumbled under his breath.  Sighing, he reached over a grabbed a key off the side table just out of Trowa’s reach.  Nizar nodded stiffly, turned, and busied himself near the dresser.              

Usually, when Kader decided Trowa had been chained long enough, Trowa had to run lingering aches from his wrists and ankles.  Occasionally, he needed to treat an impressively deep scratch.  Apparently, there were cuffs for all occasions.  The pair currently around his ankles were lined with something very flesh-friendly.  Aside from some minor tingling, Trowa’s ankles were ache-free and scratch-less once the cuffs were off.               

Of course, Trowa doubted he moved all that much in a drug-induced sleep.                

Trowa moved the pillow, eased his legs apart, and started sitting up.  Kader grabbed his arm and squeezed.                

“Take the day off tomorrow,” he said.  Trowa sneered.               

“We’ll see,” he said, trying to twist out of Kader’s grip.  The fingers tightened.               

“No ‘we’ll sees.’  Take the day.”               

“I’ve taken enough days.”               

“Do you really want to do this,” Kader asked once Trowa had gotten himself into a sitting position and unlocked his pain-clenched jaw.  “Do you want to sit, at a desk, for nine hours?”               

Trowa didn’t want to be sitting _now_.  “We’ll.  See.”               

The closer he got to actually leaving, though, the more appealing a sick day was.               

Trowa nearly cried when he pulled his jeans on.  There were worse things than a taser to the genitals: being burned alive, getting blown up, having every bone broken.  He focused on those particular traumas, on imagining how much worse they would hurt compared with a little electricity.  It kept the tears back, but it didn’t steady his hands.  Kader almost had to help him zip up.  Almost.  Trowa planned on being good and dead the day someone else _had_ to dress him.              

He didn’t count the corset as “clothes;” it was more like an appendage that, unfortunately, needed stable hands.  Kader grumbled as he snapped Trowa into it, which Trowa begrudgingly allowed.  He probably would have fallen over trying to punch the man.               

Kader didn’t stop grumbling until Trowa was standing by the front door.  He suspected Nizar snarled at him to stop it, although that didn’t seem to work in general.  Kader did stop though.  He released Trowa’s arm; Trowa was sure he was going to have bruises tomorrow.  Still, they weren’t quite enough to stop him from at least partially appreciate how the heavy hand had kept him from falling into walls or the floor.     

The blindfold, however, was.                

“I’m serious,” Kader breathed into his ear.  He tightened the knot, steadying Trowa when the hard pull jerked him off balance.  “Rest.”

Trowa didn’t even get a chance to answer.  Someone, probably Nizar, shoved his duffle bag into his hands and pulled on his elbow.  Then Trowa was stumbling out the door.                              

He had to look pathetic.  He couldn’t be sure, of course, since he hadn’t looked in a mirror yet.  But it was the only reason Trowa could think of why Nizar was being so…considerate.   Nizar moved noticeably slower than usual, and his grip was more guiding than restraining.  Such begrudging concern could only mean that Trowa looked just as bad as, or worse than, he felt. 

He even offered Trowa a hand into the truck after opening the door for him, and he didn’t try to catch Trowa’s ankle in the door.  Of course, Nizar did pull out hard and fast long before Trowa had the belt on.  And he took the hazard strip far too fast.

The trip only got worse from that.                                                                                   

After few minutes, Trowa was ready to sell his bike and promise to walk for the rest of his life so long as the truck _stopped moving_.  He felt every crack, bump, and pothole crotch first.  _Could be worse, could be worse, could definitely be worse._   After the third pothole, Trowa groaned through clenched teeth.  He laid his head back.  It could always be worse; he just wasn’t sure how.            

Finally, the truck stopped and stayed stopped.  Nizar was silent beside him, long enough that Trowa finally decided to ask where they were.  Then he heard a rig thunder by.  The driver’s door opened and shut.  Trowa tugged the blindfold off.               

He recognized the stretch of highway.  Follow it long enough and they would have hit the exit for the circus grounds.  The ramp ahead was a service ramp Trowa recognized because of its oddly calligraphic graffiti.  He often used it as a half-way mark.              

Trowa climbed carefully out of truck, hissing as he was forced to stretch.  He walked around to the back of the truck, stopping just beside the metal ramp.  Nizar looked up from the chain he was loosening.   He sat back on his heels and didn’t even sneer at Trowa.            

“Get the ramp if you don’t plan on walking,” he said.              

Trowa looked at the ramp.  Uninjured, he could lift it without a problem; injured he would have more than a little trouble.  He didn’t doubt that today Nizar would wait.  Maybe even help.            

“I’ll walk,” Trowa said.  After a brief but thorough stare, Nizar turned back to the chains.  Trowa headed back to the cab for his bag.               

Nizar had his bike off the truck and waiting for him when Trowa came back.  Trowa gave it a quick once over.  No new dings or scratches.  Yet.               

“Know where you are,” Nizar asked, dumping towels and chains into the bolted-down box in the corner of the truck bed.              

“It’ll take about twenty minutes without traffic.”              

Nodding, Nizar jumped down and shoved the ramp back into place.  “There’s a gas station,” he said while locking it in place, “about half-a- mile.”               

“Seen it.”               

“Ten minutes.  Maybe fifteen if you’re slow.”               

Trowa didn’t say anything.  Nizar stared at him, hands on the edge of the tailgate.  Eventually, he lifted and latched it into place.  He walked around to the cab, got in, took a moment (Trowa assumed he was stuffing the blindfold into his pocket) before starting the engine, and drove away.               

Driving would take twenty minutes, maybe less since it was a Sunday evening.   It would probably be the worst twenty minutes of his life, or his last.  Dumping a bike going sixty was easy even for the experienced when pain was blinding you.  He could walk, but the time it would take—and possibility of being harassed—was less than appealing.                  

Shifting the bag on his back, Trowa grabbed the handlebars.  He would have a couple of options when he reached the gas station, none of which he particularly liked.  Tow trucks were expensive and unreliable.  Cabs more so and didn’t get the bike home.  Hitchhiking had all the allure of walking home.   Which left him with making one of two phone calls, and while calling Catherine for a pickup was safer, Trowa wasn’t in the mood for prying.               

A line of cars followed an eighteen-wheeler as it inched its way towards the ramp.  Half of them crawled after it towards the station.  Trowa set the bike on the kickstand and pulled out his phone.               

“I need a favor,” he said once it connected.               

Heero had either been expecting the call or else had blown through every stop sign and red light.  _Doing ninety_.  Trowa couldn’t have been leaning against the small convenience store attached to the gas station for more than five minutes when the gray pickup pulled in.  It skirted the pumps, which caused the attendants, fidgeting as they did whenever cars approached, to glare.  Trowa was a little too concerned with the second head in the cab to care.               

He had expected Heero to call him.  They had a truck, after all.  Trowa just hadn’t expected Wufei to come.                 

Wufei turned off the truck and stepped out.  He swept Trowa with a critical eye.  Trowa straightened slowly, watching Wufei’s jaw tighten.  Ever tactful and private, Wufei at least waited until he was in grappling range to talk.                 

“Did he even bother to use lube?”              

“Does yours,” Trowa bit back after flicking Heero a sneer.               

“I’d kill him otherwise.  Would you like a recommendation or a bottle?  We have plenty.”              

Heero turned an interesting shade of red.  The color seeped from shoulders to roots.  Muttering about time, he hurried Trowa’s bike to the back of the truck.               

“Don’t glare at him,” Wufei said as Trowa sneered at Heero’s back.  Trowa turned his irritation on him and added a snarl.  “He didn’t ‘tell’ me.  You’re just losing your touch.”             

“Fuck you.”               

Wufei’s expression softened.  “That’s not a bad thing when you don’t need it anymore.”              

Who said he didn’t?  Trowa ran a hand over his face.  Wufei grabbed it by the wrist and turned it over in his hands.               

“He’s new at this,” he asked after tracing his fingers of the skin, and searching for something on Trowa’s cheeks.               

“I don’t know.  I didn’t ask.”  Wufei snorted.  “Does it matter?”               

“It does if it gives you a fever.”             

Trowa yanked his hand free and crossed his arms.  He glared over Wufei’s shoulder.  Through the windshield and back panel, he saw Heero crouching by the bike.  Trowa knew from experience that didn’t take that long to secure a bike.  _He’s stalling._                

“Look,” Wufei sighed, stepping closer and dropping his voice, “if that’s what you’re into, fine.” Trowa blinked once before flushing.  Wufei couldn’t be serious.  “I get it, okay?  I understand.” _I’m not having this conversation.  I am not having this conversation._ “But if you end up with a fever, or not able to get yourself home, then something’s wrong.”               

“It’s not like that,” Trowa said.  Somehow, his voice managed not to crack with anger or embarrassment.  “It, it was an accident.”               

“An accident,” Wufei said slowly.  Trowa nodded once.  Wufei frowned but nodded once.  He folded his arms over his chest.  “Right.  Well, make sure he knows that ‘accidents’ don’t happen anymore.”               

Conversation closed, Wufei picked up Trowa’s bag and walked back to the truck.               

Heero jumped out of the bed after Wufei opened the passenger door.  Wufei slid into the middle of the long front seat.  Heero reached the driver’s side just as Trowa reached the passenger’s.  Heero stared.  The expression was unusual: a little embarrassed, a little concerned, and a little…something.  Whatever it was, it pinched Heero’s face, almost like irritation, but there was something more carnal about it.  Almost feral.  

Trowa blinked and the odd, uncomfortable look was gone.  They got in.               

Trowa was glad to be on the outside, his shoulder against the window and Wufei’s hips and knees crushed against his.   He could turn his face towards the glass, press folded arms into his stomach, and pretend to sleep.  Which he did.  They knew, of course, but they let him do it.  Trowa was embarrassed.  Trowa was upset.  Trowa was whatever they thought was reason enough to forgive him for ignoring them entirely.  Even after they went out of their way to pick him up off the side of the road.             

So Trowa stared into the back of his eyelids, flinching from potholes and bumps and the muttering all those flinches started between Heero and Wufei.  He closed his eyes and wondered why, when he had said it had been accident, that he honestly wanted that to be true.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 13 chapters edited. About 10 more to go. And then maybe my brain will be back in this enough to get 24 out.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trowa becomes slightly desperate (and Ahsim attempts Quatre Raberba Winner).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: rape, night terrors, violence, swearing

               

“I’ve seen road kill that looks better than you do today.  You alright?”               

Trowa had found that repeating “I will not fall asleep” ten times, with hard blinks every few words, kept him from, well, _falling asleep_.  He had only been on number seven when Duo interrupted him, so it took him a little longer than usual to answer.                

“When was the last time you took a good look at road kill,” Trowa asked.  “Far as I am aware, my skull is not crushed, my brain isn’t leaking out of my ears, and my severed spine isn’t pushing out of my chest.  I could be wrong, though.”               

“Now I know you’re sick.”                

“I’m not sick,” Trowa sighed.  “I just didn’t sleep well.”               

“Again,” Duo asked, leaning against the side of his desk.  “I mean, I heard you a couple of nights this week, but I thought last night you were okay.”              

That would be because last night Trowa hadn’t bothered with activity.  Instead, he had stayed as still as possible, counting: counting the seconds, and then the minutes; counting the stitches in his blanket; counting the beats in Beethoven and Vivaldi; counting the number of suits he felled in the war.  It had been a change of pace.  He couldn’t obsessively clean every night; he’d quickly run out of things to do.               

Of course, if people were going to hear him, Trowa wasn’t going to clean anymore.  He thought he had been very quiet.  He kept to a single area every night and never moved anything larger than a chair.  He always took extra care when moving things from wood to carpet and back again.  Trowa had even gone so far as stashing cleaning supplies in his bathroom and tidying them up while breakfast was getting ready.                 

The walls were either that thin or Duo was that perceptive when it came to nocturnal activities.  Either way, Trowa was going to have to come up with something else.  It was probably a good thing; his room was starting to look too clean.  And I’m tired of smelling like sanitized lemons.               

“Kept waking up, kept falling back to sleep.  That’s all.”               

“But more time awake and waiting, right,” Duo asked.  Trowa sighed, running his hand through his hair.  Duo interpreted that as a “yes” and nodded.  “Got it.”               

Trowa wasn’t sure what Duo “got,” but apparently it wasn’t enough to warrant leaving.  Duo lingered at his desk, crossing and uncrossing his legs and tapping his fingers on his arm, long enough that Trowa almost asked him what he was thinking.  But then Duo nodded to himself.               

“Right,” he said.  “I need to get back to work, but come talk to me.  After lunch.  Before everyone gets back.  Yeah, that should work.”               

Trowa had no idea what should “work.”  He didn’t get a chance to ask, either; Duo skipped off to his desk almost immediately after the cryptic order.  Trowa let him.  Calling him back would have brought a good deal of unwanted attention to himself since Duo’s desk was on the either side of the room and he had cleared half the distance in only a few seconds.  No, one person thinking “insomnia” was more than enough.              

It wasn’t insomnia.  Trowa was able to sleep.  All he wanted to _do_ was sleep.  He was denying himself, though, because he was going to go insane if he had one more nightmare.  It wasn’t the most brilliant solution.  Long-term sleep deprivation would lead to loss of mental function (and possibly insanity) eventually, even in those trained in deprivation.  It just took a little longer.  

As of this morning, Trowa was over seventy-two hours of no sleep.  He figured he had another forty-eight before the effects were really noticeable.  By then, he hoped to have a solution or to be so exhausted that dreaming just didn’t happen.  _Or Fahd could just get his ass back from wherever the hell he went._                

He would not check his phone for messages.  He would _not_ check his phone for messages.               

Trowa had accepted, begrudgingly, that Fahd had completely ruined his sleeping habits.  His body and mind demanded activity and body warmth before settling in, which Fahd was only too happy to provide.  Trowa had accepted that until he died, or Fahd got bored of him, whichever came first, he was going to have nightmares every time he slept alone.               

He didn’t realize until recently just how bad.

Trowa had been in too much pain to do more than doze the night Heero and Wufei had picked him up.  And every other night that week, Fahd had dragged him out (despite all of his protests because even Heero had trouble accepting Trowa gone every night, “lover” or not).  If Heero was getting anxious, Trowa could only imagine what Duo and Quatre thought.  They had to know, or at least be ready to ask—if they hadn’t already.

That arrangement, however, lasted less than a week.  Friday night, after multi-round oral sex-because fucking was apparently out of the question but sucking was fine; the “69” was quickly becoming Trowa’s least favorite position-but before sleep, Fahd had announced he was leaving.  Not forever, of course.  That was too much to hope for.  There was something he had to do, however, back home.  Something he had put off for too long and now required his immediate attention.  He would be gone for at least a week.

Trowa had been good about keeping the elation to himself.  A week, he had thought, was more than enough time get his sleeping habits back on track.  It might take a sleepless night or two.  There might be some unpleasant nightmares.  But he would break himself of his need for the man.  

He had started the moment Nizar dropped him off Saturday morning, having already decided on not sleeping until Monday.  Two days was just enough time to give his body the craving without showing signs of deprivation.   It had worked; Monday night, his body needed only token amounts of attention before succumbing to sleep.  

He had woken up two hours later, his fist stuffed nearly into his throat to block the screaming. 

He hadn’t dreamt of the past, at least not one that he remembered.  Which was unfortunate since Trowa could have handled that.  He could have handled more nightmares about the medic.  But the horrible mess his brain had thrown together?  Shadows and hands, invisible but constant, crushing him.  Fire. 

That he couldn’t handle well.

Fahd kept those away.  He must have, with just a chest against Trowa’s back, gentle fingers on his side, lazy strokes on his stomach, or a soft but persistent kiss.  Now he wasn’t there. 

Trowa hadn’t thought getting a taser to the crotch would affect him so bad.  But apparently it did.  It turned his brain against him completely.  That unknown assailant, armed with lightening in a plastic box, terrorized him every night.  And like any good sadist, his subconscious got creative once it started to tire of the game.  By the end of two weeks, his head was pushing different monsters on him in unpredictable, unrelenting patterns.  Things were starting to cross: the medic muttered about blood and genes while Trowa’s penis was twisted to bruising.   The captain groaned somewhere out of sight when Trowa’s rapist lit his testicles on fire. 

None of it could happen if he didn’t sleep, though.  Not sleeping was good.  Not sleeping for a week, not so much.  It wasn’t like he had a choice, though.  Not until Fahd came back.  It had been three weeks.  What could possibly take three weeks? 

Trowa considered and eliminated several possibilities (engagement; marriage; death of parent, children, or pet etc.) until lunch, with a few breaks for finding new copies of the papers he accidentally wrote lists over.  Duo passed by his desk just before going to lunch.  This wasn’t exactly unusual, but the light, lingering touch on Trowa’s elbow was.  Duo’s fingers closed just enough to catch Trowa’s attention.  He didn’t say anything, just gestured towards his desk with his head before skipping off to the elevator. 

It was subtle enough for Heero to ignore, and blatant enough for Trowa to frown after.  He’d have to wait until after lunch though. 

The cafe was busier than usual, so getting his lunch took longer than Trowa was used to.  Of course, the sleep deprivation made some things like crosswalks and lunch counters more complicated.  Trowa blamed his lack of appetite on it, too.  He took a couple bites before putting his sandwich back in the bag.

He was just about to pick up his pen—his pen and not the cell phone that had somehow gotten out of his coat and onto the desk—when Duo returned.  He slid out of the stairwell carefully and closed the door behind him as if there was a large risk of explosion.  Duo hurried to his desk.  Only after making sure that all the desks in his immediate area were empty did he sit down and wave Trowa over.   Then he practically stuffed his head in a drawer. 

_This is either stupid or illegal_ , Trowa thought as he pushed away from his desk.  He wasn’t sure which would be worse.

“Here,” Duo said, tossing him a pill bottle.  Sleep deprived or not, Trowa was close enough to catch it one-handed. 

“I know we can get away with a lot, Duo,” he said, eyeing the blank bottle.  “But I doubt even Une can explain away narcotics.” 

“They’re not drugs.” 

“Which explains the pill bottle.” 

“They’re not _illegal_ drugs.” 

“So pharmacies have simply stopped printing prescription information, then.” 

He snorted and sat up.  “I got these sleeping pills from Vincent.  They’re legit.” 

“Because you obviously have sleeping problems.”

“There are a few things mind-blowing sex and cuddling can’t cure.”

“Right,” he muttered, staring at the bottle and trying to fight down a blush. 

“I did,” he explained.  “Not terrible, terrible but bad enough that I was willing to sit through an evaluation.  This was before Heero and I started—” 

“So why are they in your desk now?" 

“Because I still have a bad night here and there.”  Duo fiddled with the end of his braid.  “Heero doesn’t know.” 

“He probably does.” 

“He knows I don’t fall asleep sometimes or that I wake up a lot.  But it’s always in sets of two or three.  So I take a pill home after day one and pop it right before bed.  Problem solved.  Usually.” 

“He probably knows.” 

Duo sighed.  “Probably.” 

Trowa rolled the bottle between his fingers.  The pills, small white ones without any particular markings he could see, clinked over one another.  There were a lot of them. 

“Picked it up last week,” Duo said. 

“Insomnia could be contagious.” 

“If it is, I have another bottle.  These things have a pretty long shelf life.”

“Pills usually do.”

Duo shrugged.  “You’d be surprised.  Typical dosage: one pill a night.  And you’re going to want to follow that recommendation.  This stuff is strong.  You do not want to overdose, trust me.”

“I didn’t think doctors proscribed the strong stuff if your problems aren’t ‘terrible’.” 

“I may have exaggerated a bit.”

Trowa had been on the receiving end of one of Duo’s “exaggerations” before.  Duo could look convincingly miserable when he wanted to.  

“Thanks,” he said. 

An awkward silence settled over them.  Trowa stared at the pill bottle, wanting to leave and not doing it.  Duo had something to say.  He could tell by the way Duo shifted in chair and crossed-then-uncrossed his legs.  And while he couldn’t bring himself to invite whatever it was, Trowa couldn’t bring himself to shut down the coming conversation either.  No matter how little Trowa wanted to have it. 

Duo straightened and nodded.  Trowa lifted his gaze enough to see to see Duo lean towards him.  His mouth opened.  Then the elevator dinged.  The pill bottle jumped up Trowa’s sleeve.  Several files flew into Duo’s hands.  Heero didn’t say anything as Trowa passed him on his way back to his desk. 

Trowa tucked the pills safely into desk.  By the time he picked up his pen, Trowa had already decided to take two instead of the one.  Considering his high tolerance for medication, he could probably take three, but that would be a risk.  No, two would be more than enough.  Trowa turned his attention to his papers.  After a few lines, he started repeating “I will not fall asleep” in his head.

He was beginning to look forward to tonight. 

*-----*-----*

When they got home, Trowa was going to kiss Duo’s feet.  Hands and knees, lips to skin, kiss his feet.  Hell, he would do it now except that the rest of the Preventers might find it a little strange.  Not that Trowa cared what the other Preventers thought, but Duo might.  And the last thing Trowa wanted was to give Duo a reason to regret passing off the pills. 

So he’d wait.  Trowa could do that.  Actually, with the way he was feeling, Trowa could do a lot of things, including handsprings down the aisle.  He’d never had this much energy before, or patience for that matter.  Exhaustion and irritation had always been churning below a carefully crafted look of indifference.  Now he knew why, and it wasn’t Duo’s exuberance or Quatre’s pity or the disgusting hodgepodge he called a body.  It was sleep that made life bearable or not.  It was sleep that made mountains of oddly-magically-appearing paperwork not only ridiculously easy but their ability to appear at will acceptable.  Even admirable, the devoted sheets. 

Sleep made it possible for Trowa to thank Une with a smile as she praised his efforts and shoved barely-covered cleavage in his face. 

If this was how he felt after a good night’s sleep—a real sleep, not one of those the nightmare-laced monstrosities parading around as sleep—then Trowa was taking sleeping pills for the rest of his life.  He kind of liked not being a moody bastard.  

_Could do without the breasts, though._  

Trowa was wondering when the dress policy had changed (he didn’t actually question the blouse because Une had to wear something other than skirt-suits, on her down-time at the very least, although she had never struck him as the type), and if that meant he could wear his jeans and turtleneck, when someone rapped him on the head with a file.  Only one person had the audacity to do it every time he passed, and it was only because he knew Trowa had noticed him coming before he even left. 

It might be a good idea to give Duo a little warning about the events to come.  No particulars, just a suggestion or two.  Duo might even have a thing or two he’d much rather prefer.  Apart from sex, Trowa was up for anything. 

Duo could do subtly.  Most of the Preventers would miss the cues, and those who wouldn’t weren’t near his desk.     

“Just who I wanted to see,” Trowa said.  He pushed back from the desk and turned. 

Duo could fit quite comfortably into the chest Trowa turned into.  Trowa blinked at the small buttons straining in their holes before leaning to the side.  Around the unfamiliar hip, Duo was at his desk.  Well, at Heero’s desk.  On the edge of Heero’s desk.  Whispering something that had Heero blushing to his roots. 

“Really,” asked the man attached to the hip.  “I’m so flattered.”

If he could breathe, Trowa could kill him.  If the fist strangling his lungs relaxed a little, he could at least run.  But it didn’t.  Instead, Trowa gripped the chair’s arms and tried to force open his throat.  Tried to stop the pounding in his head.  Tried to see.  His vision was still black around the edges when the man’s hand lashed out.  Trowa managed to knock it aside before choking made lifting his arms too hard.  The second hand tangled in Trowa’s hair.  The world spun.

The first impact of his head to the desk unblocked his throat.  The second locked his jaw with a splintering crack. 

Trowa clawed and twisted as the hands slithered out of his hair and gripped his shoulders.  He kicked at the underside of his desk, trying to brace himself against the desk frame.  If he could slam the chair back into the bastard’s knees.  Better yet, his groin. 

The shadows under his desk grunted.  Trowa dragged his legs up with mouth-trapped shout.  The movement jerked his weight back.  The bastard behind him took the advantage.  Arm around his throat, he yanked Trowa backwards out of the chair.  Trowa landed with a grunt on the man’s chest.  He started to twist, trying to get both his head and his legs free.

“The subject appears to have developed normally, despite abnormal levels of testosterone and estrogen.”　The arm around his throat tightened as Trowa stiffened.　The blonde head followed the voice, bobbing with the lilting tenor’s rise and fall.  A pink tongue swept across his lips.    

Doc never could pull off detached and clinical.

“Of course,” he said, crawling forward with the recorder tight in his fist.  Disgustingly-familiar blue eyes pinned Trowa to the man beneath him, “development, or lack thereof, cannot be properly determined without extensive testing.  We’ll begin examination immediately.”

Doc had a hand on his ankle for less than a second before Trowa attacked.  He got in one solid kick to Doc’s face before pain locked his knees.  Taser-less, the bastard beneath him had grabbed Trowa’s jaw and squeezed.  Trowa heard the broken bones grinding.  He tasted blood.  Screaming behind clenched teeth, he clawed at the hand.

Doc took no chances.  He straddled Trowa’s knees for only so long as it took to yank his pants down.  He slid off and tangled them around Trowa’s shoes. 

It was just enough.  He was on the floor of the Preventer’s Headquarters.  He was being assaulted on the floor of the Preventer’s headquarters.  Neither of which mattered quite as much as the fact that the Preventers in the Preventer’s headquarters could see exactly what he was.  That got him twisting.

No one seemed particularly bothered, though.  Trowa got his now-nearly-crushed jaw free long enough to snap his head left and see one Preventer talking with his partner.  He snapped it right and saw another pulling a music player from inside his desk.  They knew, of course.  Trowa knew they knew: the first talked a little too loud, and the second looked a little too hard through his audio files.  But neither was distracted enough—or concerned enough—to be anything more than mildly irritated.

Trowa didn’t have time to dwell on it.  The bastard had managed to get his jaw again.

“The subject is approximately nineteen years of age at the time of this examination,” Doc said.  Trowa twisted his hips as he reached for his flaccid penis.  A quick squeeze of the mouth stilled him.  A smirk creeping across his face, Doc weighed and rolled the flesh with cold hands.  “The subject’s penis and testicles are fully developed.  Smaller than average, although large enough to not be diagnosed as micro.”

Doc shot the bastard a look that Trowa, clawing and flinching and blushing though he was, did not miss.  The body under him shifted.  Trowa’s legs were suddenly rising and falling open, nudged and held apart by large, persistent knees.  The arm around his throat finally left, only to wrap around his squirming and bucking hips. 

“The vagina is also fully developed, and also smaller than average,” Doc continued, prodding and peeling apart the moist flesh.  He ignored Trowa’s short, nasally cry. “Size will make penetration difficult.  We’ll have to be cautious when testing the subject’s reaction to physical stimulus.”

Doc smirked as he said it; caution was clearly the last thing on his mind.

Trowa didn’t care if he ended up breaking his pelvis or ripping his jaw clean off his face.  Doc wasn’t getting any closer.  The bastard beneath him had a different idea, though.  He snuck his hand between them and hauled Trowa’s hips up with a firm grip.  Doc slipped his hands under Trowa's rear and start undoing the bastard’s slacks. 

Someone to the side of the three snorted.  Trowa’s eyes darted after the noise, quickly followed by his head which had managed to get away again.  Maybe it came from the talking Preventer, who wasn’t talking anymore but sneering.  It might have been Zechs, who was watching from the corner of his eye, his lips pursed in distaste.  Or even Wufei, who was watching them with nothing short of loathing.

It couldn’t have been any of Preventers palming themselves and adjusting their chairs.  It couldn’t have been Une, sitting on a desk, her skirt shifting up her thighs.  Certainly not Duo, leaning forward with a lopsided grin.  Or Heero, perfectly still except for his tongue swiping over his lips.

Trowa, face hot, squirmed under the arms and hands.  The Preventers let out a collective groan: half enraged, half aroused.  Trowa was shuddering under the touch and the gazes when Doc’s hands clamped down on his rear and pulled.  The bastard jerked his hips up.  Trowa’s scream at the hard, dry thrust almost pried his mouth open.

Almost.

The bastard thrust slowly.  It was more a matter of position than consideration, Trowa was sure, when he wasn’t flinching from the jolting movement.  When the arm pushed down on his hips, driving the head into his prostate after it scrapped brutally against the walls, he was certain of it.  Something dribbled out of him.  Trowa swallowed back tears.  Doc straddled his spread shins.  Trowa clenched his eyes shut as fingers nudged testicles out the way.  He didn’t let them fall, not even when the fingers rubbed the moistening slit.  Trowa wouldn’t.           

“The subject is reacting to the physical stimulus.  Anal stimulation, while giving rise to some increased blood flow, appears to be insufficient for total arousal of the penis.”

Of course it was.   Every burst of hot pleasure ended in hot agony as the head scrapped.  It was better than a cold shower.

Doc pushed in two fingers.  Trowa flinched.  The fingers thrust slowly, with a disturbing amount of care. 

“The subject is responding positively to vaginal stimulation,” Doc continued.  He twisted his hand until he could rub the clitoris.  Trowa’s hips jerked against the arm.  “More so to clitoral.  Like a normal woman.”

The corners of Trowa’s eyes burned, but he didn’t taste salt yet.  Only blood.

“Considering the advances of the procedures, it is my recommendation that the subject undergo surgery and hormone therapy.  The subject is still a minor—” Two fingers turned to three and the thumb dug hard into the sensitive nub.  “—so it may be possible to encourage hormonal development and gender assignation without profuse amounts of estrogen.  

“We’ll begin removing the unnecessary genitalia upon completion.”

Suddenly, whatever care Doc had had was gone.  The three fingers spread inside him, blunt nails scratching against the walls.  A fourth finger slithered in.  The fingers then slammed and curled, scratching at him.  And still Trowa jerked and dripped down his hand, because Doc kept twisting and rolling his clitoris.

The white haze crept over him.  Trowa grew less and less concerned with the cursing and the slurs, the grunts and the cat calls, from the Preventers.  The familiar heat pooled and swelled.  He writhed against the fingers, rocking as much as the arm slung over him allowed.

Then he heard it: the low, sneered “freak," mixed with the low, groaned “fuck.”   They came from either side of his head--the hard "k's" slamming in his ears like gunshots--in too-familiar, too-precious voices.

Trowa, tears rolling down his face, shrieked as he came.

*-----*-----*

There was something ridiculously attractive about “search-and-destroy” Heero.  Clad in only black boxers, it bordered on a sinfulness that blinded Quatre to the fact that Heero had just busted in a very expensive oak door.            

Of course, if Trowa hadn’t locked it…               

The inappropriate appraisal ended when a wave of fear and misery poured over him.  Quatre stumbled back a step—something that hadn’t happened since his empathy first started becoming more than just a personality trait.  The loathing and despair, though, was simply overwhelming.  Duo’s hands gripped his shoulders from behind.  They coaxed him away from the door.  Quatre shook his head and brushed them off.  He followed Heero into the room            

Heero stood just a few steps from the door, body locked in “fight” response but with an odd expression on his face.  Apart from Trowa, no one was in the room—which couldn’t possibly be true because Trowa was still screaming.  And Trowa didn’t scream, ever.  Period.  The only reason he might would be if someone was torturing him brutally.  Even then, he would probably bite his tongue out first.           

No one was in the room.  Trowa was screaming.  Quatre watched Heero’s face as he tried to cling to the quickly unraveling analysis he had made somewhere between bolting out of bed and jumping down the stairs.  No was in the room but Trowa was still screaming.  There was something to destroy but Heero couldn’t see it.  How could he destroy something he couldn’t see?  Heero’s mouth twitched as his body started to relax.               

Then Trowa hit a strange octave.  It took them a minute to realize he was sobbing.               

Heero was nothing if not adaptable.  He listened to the sound for a second before deciding the first order of business was shutting Trowa’s mouth.              

One of Quatre’s sisters used to sleepwalk.  He didn’t remember which one; he had been five at the time.  He remembered Iria, though, the one time he tried to “help.”  Quatre had heard his sleep-trapped sister in the hall.  He had watched her bump lightly into the wall.  He was just going to tug her hand and see if she needed help.  She might have gotten lost on the way to the bathroom or something.  Iria had caught him first, by the hair.  She had shaken him like a toy.  Did he want to give her a heart attack?  Didn’t he know that’s what happened when you woke sleepwalkers?  Quatre’s yelps had woken his sleepwalking sister.  Nothing happened.  She even helped pry Iria off.               

Nothing happened to the sleepwalker when you woke them.  But Quatre's sister couldn’t shoot a man in the head in the dark.  Heero was at the bed before Quatre could open his mouth to warn him.               

Trowa’s entire body locked when Heero touched his shoulders.  Dropping to the mattress, Trowa panted, nearly choking. Then both of his hands darted beneath the pillow.               

Heero barely dodged the first fear-powered strike.  It must have grazed his face because he hissed and turned the rearing back into asidestep, holding his cheek.  Duo cursed.  Trowa, body pitched forward for a stab, twisted towards the door.  Quatre saw wide, wild green eyes before Duo yanked him to the floor by the neck.  The knife sank three inches into the doorframe.              

Trowa howled.  Quatre squirmed beneath Duo, who kept pushing every freed limb back down into the carpet.  Quatre snarled; he needed to see, damn it!  A ridiculous strong need to “flee” was pouring over him.   Trowa had just been radiating “kill or be killed.”  Emotions never changed that fast!   

Then again, Heero didn’t usually have his arm around Trowa’s throat.             

Heero had somehow wrestled Trowa out of bed and into a hold that would have been hard to slip even if he wasn’t panicking.  Quatre couldn’t decide which was more painful: the angle Heero had Trowa’s head at; the force Heero had on wrist of the knife-occupied hand; or the pressure he put on Trowa’s spine to keep him balanced while Heero pushed a heel into Trowa’s stomach.  None of it, though, stopped Trowa from trying to break out.  Heero tightened the hold as much as he dared as Trowa twisted.  Trowa choked, bowing forward as Heero leaned hard on his back.  Heero's heel dragged across his stomach to his side and dug in.               

It was enough.  The muscles of Trowa's stomach and throat heaved as much as they could with hard limbs crushed against them.  Trowa gagged silently.  His eyes rolled back.  The knife tumbled from his stiff, convulsing fingers.  Heero unwrapped himself quickly and pounced on the knife.  Trowa didn’t notice.  The moment he was freed, he had fallen forward onto his hands and heaved.  Trowa choked up everything in his stomach before collapsing.               

The room was silent, apart from Trowa’s ragged breathing.  Heero watched him with the knife behind his back.  He stood slowly and walked towards the dresser, eyes always on Trowa’s face.  When Trowa shivered and his head lolled deeper into the carpet, Heero set the knife down next to Trowa’s hairbrush.               

“Jesus,” Duo breathed.  Quatre wormed his way out from under him.  He slid down beside Trowa and rolled him onto his back, out of the puddle of sick. “What the hell was that?”              

“I don’t know,” Heero said, hand on the back of his neck.               

“He was scared,” Quatre said while taking measure of his pulse and watching the empty green eyes roll back.  It didn’t help at all but it gave Quatre something to do as he picked apart the chaos that had rolled off Trowa so quickly and then ended so abruptly.               

“No shit, Cat, but why?”               

“I’m not a mind reader.”               

“Then read what you can.”               

“It doesn’t work that way and you know it.  Emotions have no ‘facts’.”               

“Make an educated guess.”               

“Based on what?”               

“I don’t know.  Something!  Trowa doesn’t just pull knives on people.”              

“What is this,” Heero asked.  He rolled something small and slender between his fingers.  Whatever was inside it clinked.              

Duo was up and snatching the bottle out of Heero’s hand faster than either he or Quatre expected.  He dumped its contents on the dresser.  The pills scrapped and skipped across the wood as he counted.              

“God damn it.  I told him just take one.”             

“He got these from you?” Heero snapped.              

“They’re not illegal.”               

“And they’re not his either.”               

Duo rolled his eyes.  “I was trying to help him out.  He wasn’t sleeping well.”               

“And you didn’t tell him to get them from a doctor himself?”               

Duo snorted.  “Because I would tell either of you to go to a doctor.  That would go over real well.”               

Heero sneered at him, mostly because he couldn’t deny it.  “How many did he take?”               

Duo looked at the small pile of pills for a moment.  “Three,” he said finally.  Heero ran a hand over his face.               

“What kind of side effects do these things have?”               

“I don’t know.  I trusted Vince when he said more than one would mess me up," Duo said.  He was quiet for a second then chewed on his lip.  Heero pounced on it.               

“What?” he demanded.              

“I had some wicked nightmares after the first couple of doses.”               

Heero cursed.               

Quatre sighed.  “Someone help me get him back to bed."               

While Duo swept the pills into his hand, Heero knelt down beside Quatre.  Quatre didn’t get a chance to wrap his arms around Trowa’s knees.  Heero lifted the boneless weight easily.  Cradling his lolling head against his shoulder, Heero carried him carefully the three steps to the bed.  Quatre didn’t need empathy to know how little Heero had liked incapacitating Trowa.               

“You guys should go back to bed,” Quatre said, heading towards the bathroom once Trowa was covered up.  “You have to get up in a couple hours.”               

“So do you,” Duo said.               

“They can survive one Saturday without me.  The Preventers on the other hand.”              

A second, Kader-centered operation had just recently opened, under much tighter security.  Heero and Duo were two of four Preventers brought over from the botched one.  Everyone else was fresh and terrified of what Lady Une would do if there was another leak.  Now was not the time to test her patience with personal time.                  

“She can deal with it if she has to,” Duo said.               

“You told me about the new team.  You really want to leave them alone?”               

Heero flinched.  He wouldn’t leave them alone with three-digit ciphers.  “You don’t have to do this alone,” he said anyway.                 

“I’ll be fine.”              

“Will you,” Heero asked.  Quatre felt a shiver building in his lower back from the hard gaze.  He pushed it down.               

“Yeah,” he said, flicking on the bathroom light.               

Quatre took a little longer than necessary finding and filling a bucket with warm water.  Eventually, they left, Heero lingering at the door just a little too long.  He knew it was Heero.  His emotions also felt a little…heavier.  And while they were both radiating guilt and concern, whoever had strayed by the door left behind a rich bitterness that irritated Quatre’s senses.  Quatre shook his head, tossing a towel and washcloth over his shoulder.  He would never get used to Heero really “feeling.”              

Trowa didn’t have a side table.  His alarm clock, which Quatre could never remember hearing, was on the dresser.  And if he ever needed light, Trowa probably used the chair in the corner or the deep windowsill.  Quatre put the bowl on the ground and hung the towel on the headboard.  He wetted and wrung the washcloth before crawling carefully onto the bed.  He had no idea when Trowa would wake up again, or if he kept a third knife under his pillow, but Quatre doubted he would want to wake up sticky from vomit.                  

Quatre set the washcloth on Trowa’s cheeks.  Trowa barely shifted at the gentle heat and pressure.  Quatre rubbed slowly.  Trowa didn’t even sigh.  Moving closer, Quatre washed his face, brushing back strands of hair.  He slid carefully off the bed, rinsed and wrung the cloth, and started dabbing down Trowa’s slender neck.               

It was then Quatre realized Trowa had gone to bed without a shirt.  He probably always did.  Quatre held the cloth beneath his chin until water dripped along Trowa’s throat and pooled in the elegant dip of his collarbone.                

His mouth and chin could use a little more attention.                 

Trowa’s face and neck couldn’t get much cleaner.  The water wasn’t going to stay warm forever, and the skin of the chest was almost always more sensitive, thanks to lack of exposure.  But if Quatre left the carpet for much longer, it was going to stain.  So would the blanket.  Quatre dabbed his face dry.  Blankets were much easier to replace than carpets.  He should change the water too.  Quatre did manage to fold the blanket back.  A little bit.          

Cleaning the carpet took less time than he had hoped.  It was mostly stomach acid.  Trowa hadn’t been eating much again.  He tended to cut back on food when something was upsetting him.  Which struck Quatre as the opposite of the normal reaction.  But Trowa wasn’t anything if not “opposite.”  Maybe it started off as a defense that later turned into a coping mechanism.   But what did not eating defend against?  Quatre didn’t think he wanted to know.            

Considering all of this only highlighted the fact that Quatre hadn’t been paying attention when it mattered.  Just like how he wasn’t paying attention now.  The carpet couldn’t get much cleaner, the smells could wake him at any time, and Quatre still scrubbed.  Only when he started ripping up fibers did Quatre stop.  That was far too long.  By the time he had put the cleaning products back in the bathroom--why were they even there?--and freshened the water, the dregs of Trowa’s sudden illness had dried.               

Quatre, after getting on the bed and shifting his shoulders, held the washcloth just under Trowa’s collarbone.  This time, Trowa shifted a little more from the heat, but his eyelids didn’t move.  Quatre flattened out his hand.  He brought it carefully over shoulders and beneath his collarbone, grimacing at the way the skin stretched over the usually faintly visible bones until Trowa looked almost emaciated.  Quatre watched the still face as he moved further done.  Checking for alertness, he told himself.              

_Grow up._              

Trowa looked a bit better cleaned up.  Quatre covered him back up, with a different blanket, of course.  Trowa didn’t move when Quatre changed blankets, or when he took the soiled one to the laundry room to soak.  Quatre accidentally smacked him with the towel at one point and Trowa didn’t move.  Quatre wasn't concerned.  He felt lazy waves of exhaustion of deep sleep, and not the heavier nothingness of unconsciousness.  Trowa was fine.               

Quatre sat on the edge of the bed, soaking up the dull emotion that came with dreamless sleep.  A few months ago, he would have been ecstatic to feel something so weak and simple from Trowa.  Now, Quatre just dragged his knees to his chest and sighed.                

He had been used to Trowa’s blankness.  From the first, Trowa had exuded a wall Quatre couldn’t cross.  Before the empathy, it had been a problem of mixture: tainting a placid face or a vague smile with something else that always left Quatre doubting his understanding of him.  After the empathy had reared, the wall became “real.”   Trowa learned blocked Quatre from the taste and sound and feel of him.  Even when Trowa smiled, Quatre sensed only clear granite.               

Trowa wasn’t being malicious.  Quatre was sure of that.  Trowa wasn’t looking to manipulate anyone or anything with his pulling back and damming up.  And Quatre would know; manipulation had an emotional link he could have latched onto.  No, the wall was matter of defense.  Of safety.  Quatre had never wanted anything more than he wanted Trowa’s complete trust, and the wall throw the lack of it in Quatre’s face.  It had always been frustrating.              

Then one day, the wall had come crashing down and Quatre tasted Trowa’s irritation.  It had lasted ten seconds.  Then the wall built itself back up.  Trowa had given no sign of feeling the breach.  He slipped his phone back in his coat and sat back down to breakfast.  He asked Quatre, clutching his coffee mug to keep from trembling, to pass the fruit.             

After that morning, the wall had started falling more and more frequently.  Quatre felt Trowa’s curiosity, his sadness, his embarrassment, without Trowa ever giving any indication of knowing that he could.  Something had happened.  Something had to have happened, and Quatre could only think of two things.  And while he preferred one much more than the other, Quatre knew better.  Trowa would never bring that wall down himself.  Not without resistance, and certainly not without help.  Which meant that Trowa had to be seeing someone.              

That infuriated Quatre.         

Quatre would admit that part of it was jealousy.  He had wanted Trowa’s friendship, and then his affection, for years.  He had painstakingly nudged and coaxed and understood Trowa into a position where trust and affection were possible--for someone else.  As much as he had wanted to feel Trowa, Quatre wanted to know that it was because of him more.  And obviously it wasn’t.  It left Quatre with a hard, seeping bitterness.  One that occasionally colored Trowa.  What a selfish bastard.  All the time and effort, and he couldn’t even be bothered to try.  Who the hell could adore Trowa more than Quatre?

_Who could?  Who could adore Trowa?  Who could want him, want…that?_               

_I could!  I do!_   Quatre shuddered at the way that bitter, sneering voice sounded too much like him.  Quatre wanted Trowa.  He did.  He had wanted Trowa since the first time he saw him: narrow hands with deceptively delicate-looking fingers raised to his head; pale lips slightly parted as he waited; a single green eye drilling through Quatre, searching his smile for deception, probing at his sensitive core.  Time had only made that first jolt of want stronger.  He wanted Trowa’s hands on his skin; he wanted to feel the war-brought callouses scrapping oh-so-gently down his body.  He wanted those lips to widen, over his mouth, his chest, his cock, and feel the smooth warmth of Trowa’s tongue.  He wanted that green eye to soften and close as Trowa rode out orgasm with him.               

Quatre wanted him.  He would always want him, and if he had to learn to ignore a few pieces of anatomy to have him--               

Growling, Quatre banged his head against his knees.  “No, no, no, no, no, no.”              

Quatre had slaved to break that hold.  But after nearly twenty years of living, and nearly five years of the man being dead, he still couldn’t shut out his father’s voice.  The self-righteous baritone lectured him at the most inappropriate times: in meetings with Relena and her advisors, during lunch dates with the assistants of Middle Eastern dignitaries, when he was basking in afterglow with Heero and Duo breathing on either side of him.  It had taken Quatre a very long time to train himself not to flinch as his father scolded him.  It had taken him time to keep his face still and train of thought intact while his father reminded him of the inferiority of women, the appropriateness of a prim and proper wife, and the impropriety of male-male polygamy.                                

It had been harder when he was young and impressionable, and even worse in the war when Quatre longed for stability (no matter how discriminatory) more than peace.  But he had learned (eventually) to ignore that voice of “appropriateness.”    Eventually, he managed to flat out reject it.  There was nothing appropriate about crushing women.  There was nothing appropriate about entering a marriage on false pretenses or for convenience.  There was nothing appropriate about treating a lover like a filthy secret.  Quatre had argued with his father’s voice often and vehemently, which used to show very clearly on his face, quite often in meetings.  Learning to hold his composure had been critical.               

Now, that same skill masked his weakness.  His father was scolding him again, and Quatre struggled with ignoring him.  He hadn’t found the right argument yet.  He was afraid he couldn’t.               

There had never been a lecture about people like Trowa.  Quatre doubted his father considered that sort of existence possible.  There was enough of the man in him, however, to make that lecture easy for his brain to make up.  It made rejecting it, or at the very least ignoring it, difficult to.  The lecture had his father's worse, but it was Quatre's voice that said them.  They sprang from his ideas.   He could not ignore himself, reject himself—at least not that part of him that never escaped his father’s hold.  

Not yet anyway.               

Somehow he would though, because Quatre had to.  He still wanted Trowa.  Deep down, far away from the part of him that shuddered at the thought of breasts pressed against his back, Quatre wanted him.  Deep down, far away from the bastard who hated the idea of vaginal walls around his cock, Quatre wanted him.  Deep down, away from the sick bastard that thought he could love Trowa when he learned how to ignore the female in Trowa, Quatre wanted Trowa.  All of Trowa.  Unchanged.  

Quatre gripped his legs to his chest and prayed that want was enough.               

*-----*-----* 

Trowa didn’t need empathy to notice disgust.  It was a matter of body language, something he had always been good at interpreting.  There were always certain indicators: a certain shift of a shoulder or hip, the unique tightening of a knuckle, the too-quick flick of the eyes.  Trowa knew how to find and read them all.  There were fewer surprises that way.            

Emotional people were even easier to read.  The body reacted with unusual expressiveness when the heart was worn on the sleeve.  It was part of the reason Trowa limited his exposure to the overly-emotional; the lack of tact made him too self-conscious.  Even he would admit that masks were hard to hold onto when you’re too conscious of the offense you cause. 

Quatre, of course, had been the notable exception.  Tact almost always ranked higher than emotion on his priority list.  Except, apparently, when the hermaphrodite’s back was turned.             

Trowa's wasn't, at the moment, which meant that Quatre would shove his disgust and all of its tells as far down as he could.  When he stepped back into the room, there would be no tingling at Trowa’s nape or a sudden tension in his shoulders as he decided to fight or flee.  The lump in his throat would stay, though.  He would have to watch how many times he swallowed or else Quatre would know that Trowa knew that he was hiding from him.             

That was a conversation Trowa refused to have.  Not with Quatre.  He preferred deceit.              

Quatre knocked—even when the door was open, he knocked—before poking his head in.  Not wanting Quatre to think he was sleeping, and therefore free to let the disgust bubble up, Trowa rolled onto his side and faced the door.  His stomach heaved.  Trowa flinched and curled a bit.             

“How are you feeling,” Quatre asked.             

“Fabulous.  I’ve always loved migraines and throwing up.”               

Quatre rolled his eyes.  “Well it’ll teach you to follow dosing instructions, now won’t it?”            

“I wanted it to actually work.  My tolerance is rather high.”             

“Not high enough.”              

No, not high enough, which was surprising.  A childhood of forced morphine injections had raised his tolerance for most medicines to a ridiculous level.  He needed several ibuprofen for a touch of relief from a minor headache.  Three sleeping pills should have been nothing.  Of course, Trowa’s pain tolerance was also high; he hadn’t taken medicine for relief from anything less than shattered bones and gun wounds in months.                

Not up to arguing, Trowa turned his face into the mattress.               

“Heero said they’d make a quick run to the store.”             

“You don’t have to this, Quatre.”              

“They’d have to go to the store to buy canned soup anyway.  Might as well just get vegetables.”               

Processed-then-canned foods weren’t quite forbidden, but none of them were in any hurry to add them to the weekly grocery lists (minus the biyearly stockpile trip.  Those cans didn't leave the basement, though).  There were too many memories of too many nights eating aluminum-tasting trash in a cockpit.  It was largely the reason why Heero never ate soup anywhere he couldn't be absolutely sure it was made on-site.                

Trowa avoided trail mix and energy bars for similar reasons.               

“You need anything,” Quatre asked.  Trowa shook his head.  He heard Quatre pad softly towards the bed.  “I’ll get you another drink, then.  You need to stay hydrated."              

Trowa didn’t have a side table.  Side tables were problematic, especially when you slept near the edge of the bed like Trowa.  It was much safer to roll out and grab a gun from beneath the bed without one.  Quatre had been leaving the glass on the floor: close enough for Trowa to reach, but far enough away that he didn't knock it over when he rushed to the bathroom.  Trowa turned his face out of the mattress as Quatre approached.  Quatre smiled.  It was small but with enough sympathy to numb whatever sting his chastising might have caused.  The smile didn’t reach his eyes, though.  And Quatre’s eyes didn’t quite reach him, stopping short on something at the corner of Trowa’s eye.               

“You really don’t have to,” Trowa said softly once Quatre’s fingers were around the glass.              

“Of course I do, Trowa.  You’re my friend."              

Trowa, turning his face back into the mattress to keep from throttling him, thanked him softly.               

Getting the drink wouldn’t take very long, even if Quatre dawdled, so Trowa didn’t have time, or the energy, to do anything rash. The worst he could do would be throwing pillows anyway.  Watching them crumple after thudding against a wall or window just wasn’t satisfying.  If he was really desperate, Trowa might be able to drag himself to the bathroom.  He could prop himself up against the door and wait.  There would probably be faint trace of disgust, though, as Quatre came and went.               

Still, it was tempting.  Trowa could even wash his face.  That way, the next time he had to look at Quatre and watch his eyes slid so gracefully to the side, there would no tear stains to tattle on him.  Trowa just had to get up.  His arms struggled with his weight.  It had nothing to do with his shaking shoulders or the way his breath hitched.  It was pure exhaustion.  Exhaustion he could handle.                

Trowa was no closer to getting up, and that much closer to crying, when something rattled on his dresser.  The noise lasted a few seconds, stopped, then started again.  Trowa watched the cell phone inch across the wood.  It stopped after the third sequence.  In-coming text message.  Trowa swallowed.  Honestly, it was rather sad; that, even more than avoiding Quatre’s disgust, could drag Trowa out of bed.                

His stomach jumped straight into his throat when he straightened, but Trowa wasn’t walking to his dresser like an invalid.  He tugged down the irritating shirt that had tangled around his chest with his squirming, and wiped his mouth and forehead with trembling hands before picking up the phone.  The message was shorter than Trowa was used to.  Or liked. 

               

**_Just got in.  Can’t see you yet.  Nizar will get you Monday night._ **

                

There was exhaustion and irritation in the pixilated letters.  Whatever he had been doing had either been long or tiring, and probably hadn’t ended well.  Yet, Fahd had made a point of contacting him, even if it was just to say they couldn't meet.  Trowa chewed on his cheek.  Having a bit more time should have elated Trowa.   But it didn’t.  Trowa was desperate for sleep, and utterly unwilling to put anything with the warning “may induce drowsiness” in his system.   He wanted to throw the phone against the wall.  _Two more days._                

He didn’t, of course, and not just because smashing the phone would end with bizarre questions today and a turn over the couch Monday night.  He was surprised.  Fahd didn’t have to tell him.  Trowa actually hadn't expected him to.  He expected Fahd to call him at work, demanding he be ready for pick up in an hour.  Granted, texting Trowa was probably supposed to have negative consequences: fill Trowa with enough dread to disrupt his routine and make him easier to manipulate.  It didn’t.  Instead, Trowa felt a warm, worrying tightness in his chest.               

“Standing straight.  That’s a good sign.”               

Trowa snapped his phone shut too quickly.  Even though he kept his face mostly blank, Quatre still locked onto the device.               

“Was starting to hurt my back," Trowa explained.                

Quatre nodded slightly.  When Trowa didn’t move—because setting the phone down now was only slightly more suspicious than holding it casually at his side—Quatre moved towards the bed.                

“Everything alright,” he asked while setting the glass down.                

“Fine.”              

“Heero asking what vegetables you preferred?”               

Trowa could say yes.  He should say yes.  Heero would certainly back him up if Quatre was suspicious enough to ask him.  Unless the overdosing changed a few things, which it might have.  Still, he should say yes.  The less suspicious he could keep Quatre, the better.                

If Quatre would look him in the eye, Trowa would say yes.  If Quatre would let him hold his gaze—if Quatre would stop staring at the phone in his hand—if he would stop his eyes from narrowing and darkening and twisting into familiar, cold sapphires—Trowa would say just about anything.               

But he didn’t.               

“No,” Trowa answered.               

“What’d he ask?”               

“Nothing.”               

He didn't know he had missed it.  How he didn't realize—as Trowa did now, watching the gentle-even-in-disgust face hardened—that Quatre looked a bit like Doc.  Quatre's usual gentleness must have kept that recognition away.  But now, the delicate lips curled into a small sneer, and Trowa couldn't stop himself from seeing the wide, white-toothed leer.  He could stop the meticulously parted hair from shifting into that bastard's purposefully-unruly blonde mess.  He couldn't unsee the soft eyes turning hard, turning selfish, turning hungry.                 

Trowa swayed.  The corner of the dresser jabbed him in the side as he stumbled back.  Hissing, he dropped the phone.  Quatre’s face snapped back to its typical gentle mask before it hit the floor.               

Quatre didn’t go after it.  Instead, Quatre wrapped his hands around Trowa’s shaking shoulders and eased his doubled-over body to the ground.  He asked gentle questions and murmured tender assurances.  His kind fingers slid across Trowa’s neck and face, feeling pulse and forehead, until finally resting in his hair.                

Trowa’s stomach heaved.  Quatre wrapped an arm tightly around his waist and dragged him up enough to get to the bathroom.  The disgust was there, lurking, not quite deep enough not to feel, but Trowa still clung to him.  Quatre eased him down in front of the toilet.  He brushed Trowa’s hair back, holding it with fingers that scratched gently at his scalp.  Trowa sobbed.               

_But everyone cries when throwing up._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quatre was difficult to write (all of the pilots are difficult to write, and yes there is at least one section for each).


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trowa realizes things are far too complicated, and Fahd gets a chance to speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: swearing, violence, references to night terrors and sexual assault, rape

 

Apparently, stupidity wasn’t done with him (and Trowa was willing to admit that sparring during his lunch hour after a weekend of vomiting and borderline-dehydration was incredibly stupid).  He thought stupidity had gotten enough out of him in the last few months: relationship-damaging lying, extortionist sex, and now accidental overdosing.  But no.  Stupidity wasn’t finished yet.  It wanted just a little for its mantle.  Maybe if Trowa hurt himself—broken arm, cracked skull, hurt himself—stupidity would back off. 

He sincerely doubted it, though. 

Of course, Duo hadn’t actually said “spar.”  Heero had been a little too close, and not nearly distracted enough.  There wasn’t much else to do, though, on the gym-packed 16th floor.  If he had any doubts at all,　though, Trowa lost them when he stepped out of the elevator.  Duo was already there, watching green operatives take headers into the mat.  There was a duffle bag slung over his shoulder and a hard frown on his lips. 

Trowa frowned.  He hadn’t even thought to bring a change of clothes. 

Trowa slid up beside Duo as casually as discomfort allowed.  Hand with his lunch on his hip, Trowa watched half-a-dozen Preventers hit the floor before Duo finally glanced at him. 

“How do you say ‘Do your damn job, asshole’ with tact,” he muttered.  

Trowa watched a particular fragile-looking recruit struggle to his knees and the instructor’s (a burly man whose name he didn’t bother to remember) half-hearted and glowering attempts to help. 

“Skip the tact,” Trowa said. 

Duo nodded once and turned.  He headed towards one of the side rooms.  Trowa sighed silently and followed.  He wouldn’t be surprised if there was another anonymous letter regarding changes to the combat staff on Une’s desk by the end of the day.  _Maybe he’ll tape it to her door this time._  

The room Duo chose looked so much like the one Trowa had practiced in that he nearly paused before entering.  There were a few key differences, though, which he clutched at momentarily.  Fewer mirrors, a lack of the ballet bar, several piles of mats.  Not that Trowa and Duo needed mats, but they did make workable furniture in a pinch. 

Duo dropped his duffle bag on top of the nearest waist-high pile.  He stretched for a second before starting to undo the buttons of his uniform.   Trowa stiffened.  But then Duo tugged at the bottom of his shirt, leaving only the top few buttons undone.  Trowa’s body eased.  He waited until Duo had tugged his shirt free of his slacks and was working on his cuffs before putting down his lunch.  Trowa undid his own cuffs slowly.  

“So here’s what I’m thinking,” Duo said, rolling up his sleeves.  “We’ve got about forty minutes left for lunch, and we should, you know, eat.  So a fifteen minute spar.  No rounds, no points.  We go until the timer goes off or one of us can’t get up."

_A street fight without the street, then_.  No pulling punches, no backing off.  None of the practice mat’s unwritten rules.  It was about as close to actual combat as they could get inside the building, and the kind of fighting that Duo excelled at.    

“We might want to avoid the latter,” Trowa said, rolling up his sleeves.  “Unless you want people wondering why I’m carrying you back to your desk.” 

Duo snorted, the corners of his mouth turning up.  “They won’t, but they might wonder why I’m dragging you back.” 

Trowa glanced at him.  Duo, grinning, twirled his cell phone between his fingers.  He knew it was a joke, very much like their old ones.  It was an honest attempt at the occasional biting give-and-take they used to have.  Trowa blinked once before he tugged his shirt free from his slacks. 

“As if you could carry me as far as the door,” he said. 

Duo chuckled and set the alarm on his phone.  He tossed it onto the duffle bag and walked out to the center of the room.  Trowa slid into place across from him.  They watched each other for a moment: Duo with his hands on his hips, Trowa with his hands at his sides. 

If he was honest, Trowa would admit that Duo wasn’t his preferred partner.  While higher on the list than Quatre—who had surprisingly little experience with hand-to-hand—and Wufei—who, thanks to years of structured training, was a little too eager to call “foul” on most of Trowa’s preferred techniques—he was still miles below Heero.  Duo had a quirk or two that kept Trowa from asking him to spar more than once in a great while.  And although he had never asked, Trowa thought that Heero felt very much the same.  

When it came to sparring, Heero and Trowa simply complimented each other and provided one another with challenges and experience.  Heero had yet to neutralize an infiltrator.  He knew, however, that most favored the fast and graceful efficiency that Trowa happened to prefer.  Trowa, on the other hand, studied Heero’s sturdier force-based style, which was usually the favorite of guards and soldiers.   They each benefited from the play of heavy fists and twisting bodies, from strikes that could wind after the first hit and the contortions that could confuse one minute and subdue the next.  

And they didn’t have to worry about theft. 

Because there was the occasional theft when Duo was involved.  Duo was street, born and raised.  Trowa had learned long ago that one of the first rules of the street was adaption.   What didn’t kill you was up from grabs, if you could get it.  And Duo was just strong enough and just flexible enough to borrow liberally from Heero and Trowa both.  They never faulted Duo for it, but there was a certain sting about having your own moves used against you. 

The one thing Duo couldn’t take, however, was Trowa’s acrobatics; he didn’t have the experience or the bone structure.  Used liberally, Trowa would be guaranteed victory.  After a weekend of migraines and vomiting, though, Trowa didn’t have the stamina to pull off more than a handful of moves.  Not in a breakless bout, anyway. 

He would have to be careful.  Trowa hated being careful.      

The first thirty seconds were already gone when Duo finally moved.  Trowa caught the small shift of his right foot, so he was ready when Duo rushed, dropped, and swept out his left leg.  It was a borrowed move; Trowa had lost to it, late in a spar with Heero, several months ago.  Instead of jumping it, or flipping over Duo’s shoulders, Trowa let his leg catch.  Shifting with the momentum, Trowa wrapped his other leg wrap around Duo’s calf and rolled forward.  Duo lost his tentative balance.  Trowa broke the roll, landed on his back, and took Duo’s legs hostage.  

Duo hissed and squirmed, stuck between two arms and a leg. “Sneaky son of a bitch.”

Duo wasn’t quite as good at slipping a hold as Trowa or Heero (he didn’t use them enough to fully understand the intricacies), but eventually, he could overpower Trowa.  Trowa rolled out of reach just in time to avoid a heel to the head.  Duo didn’t press him.  He rolled slowly to his feet, letting Trowa do the same.  They circled each other. 

In the next rush, Duo went for a direct assault, which was problematic.  Normally, Trowa could dodge, catch a limb, use it as a fulcrum for a flip, and send Duo into either the floor or the wall.  He didn’t have the energy for it today.  Trowa dodged what he could, blocking and redirecting, waiting for the right opportunity.  It didn’t come before Duo managed to slip a fist under his guard.  While not quite as hard as Heero’s, the blow to the chest still knocked the breath out of him.  Duo got three more hits in before Trowa broke out of the streak with a well-placed jab to Duo’s side.    

Trowa backed slowly, looking for a more defendable position.  Duo hounded him.  He had the advantage, and he wasn’t letting it go.  Jab, cross, low kick, mid kick, cross.  Block with forearms and shins.  Trowa was starting to tire.  Duo wasn’t.  He had no idea how much time was left.

_Right.  Change tactics._

He had first noticed this trick with Wufei, who had the irritating habit of redirecting all of Trowa’s strikes into empty air.  Once Trowa had figured out it was a matter of momentum and gentle direction, it was easy for him to find an acceptable style to incorporate.  With Duo’s next punch, Trowa stepped out of the line of attack.  He caught Duo’s wrist with the edge of his hand and turned, pulling Duo with him.   Duo stumbled halfway around before he threw a wobbly cross.  Trowa dropped the first wrist, caught the second under the knot of the fist, and pulled Duo around again.

 

Trowa moved Duo back and forth across the room.  Every so often, Trowa would go under him instead of around, switching places with Duo in a rapid, and often arm-twisting, pace.  When Duo kicked, Trowa caught the heel and stepped back with the heel before pivoting.  The turn wrenched Duo’s knee and hip.  

Eventually, Duo started trying to slip his knee between Trowa’s legs, hoping to trip him.  By that point, though, Trowa had gotten some of his stamina back.  And an idea.

Trowa broke his current hold on Duo’s wrist and backed up.  Duo was quick to follow him.  Duo’s first punch was the sloppiest yet, thanks to exhaustion and frustration.  Trowa let it slip past his guard.  The trick worked.  Slightly inspired, Duo put more effort into his attacks, making the next punch that Trowa let by—a cross to the ribs followed quickly by a jab—hurt.  Trowa backed up another step.  Duo followed with a move Trowa had used himself: a sharp spinning combination that, if successful, struck three vital points at three different heights.  Trowa had long since abandoned it, because it was too easy to interrupt.  

Duo went for the highest target, Trowa’s temple, first.  The round house would be hard and fast.  Duo’s back foot shifted.  Trowa dropped down and rolled backwards beneath the arc of the kick.  He flattened his hands against the floor as he rolled.  When Duo finished the turn, Trowa struck.  Straightening his arms, Trowa propelled his body upwards into the first stage of a flip.  He twisted his leg, twining it about Duo’s neck.  As he moved through the flip, the forward force would drag Duo along. 

It was an effective move, but one Trowa hadn’t used in quite a while.  He had lost some of the required muscle mass.  He couldn’t finish the flip with Duo’s weight. 

Trowa landed hard on his back.  And although Duo landed harder a few feet away from him, it didn’t make the fall any less embarrassing.  Or his back hurt less. 

They laid there for a few seconds, panting and silently taking stock of their injuries.  The alarm went off.  On the third ring, Duo swung himself around until he could look at the phone.  He stared for a moment before looking at Trowa.

“Call it a draw?”

Trowa rolled his head to the side.  “Sure.”

Duo groaned as he rolled up onto his knees.  “That hurt, you know.” 

“It’s supposed to,” Trowa said, flexing his muscles systematically.  When he was sure he had done no permanent damage, he sat up. 

“Were you supposed to fall too?”  Trowa got slowly to his feet, wincing at the pain in his back.   “Take that as a no.”

They took their time cooling down.  Duo walked slowly to the phone and turned it off and then walked once around the room. He stretched carefully as he moved.  Trowa stayed where he stood, working the kinks in his muscles slowly.  Eventually, they got their lunches and sat down against the mirrors.  They ate in a somewhat companionable silence. 

“Where’d you learn that anyway,” Duo asked after a couple of minutes.  Trowa glanced at him between bites.

“Interested?”

“Not if I’m supposed to fall on my ass every time.”

“Forget it.”

“What?  Dude, I could totally pull off a flip move like that.”

Trowa gave Duo a short once over.  Shoulders too broad, waist too narrow, and leg muscles in all the wrong places.  It was an accident waiting to happen.  Trowa turned away and bit into his sandwich.

“You’re an ass, you know that,” Duo said, lips twitching into a smile.

They were quiet, apart from chewing and swallowing and the occasional rustle of their clothes as they moved.  Trowa sensed, though, a certain restlessness in Duo.  It wasn’t particularly noticeable, but when Trowa turned to get his drink from his bag, he thought he caught Duo worrying at his cheek.

If Duo wanted to talk, Trowa wasn’t going to deny him.  He wasn’t going to invite it, either.

“Not worth it,” Duo mumbled finally.  Trowa glanced at him, mouth around the bottle.  His eyebrow rose slightly as he took a short drink.  Duo sighed and turned towards him. “Well it’s not.”

Trowa put the bottle down and picked up his sandwich again.  He was quite sure this had nothing to do with Duo learning gymnastics, but he wasn’t sure what else it could be.  Trowa, head tilted slightly, shrugged once before taking a sip of his tea.

Duo frowned.  “I’m serious.  Nobody’s worth drugging yourself stupid, boyfriend or not.”

Quatre had told him once (Trowa wasn’t even sure why) that soda was the most unfortunate drink to ever have come out your nose.  Apparently, the carbonation wreaked havoc on the sinuses.  Trowa had never had soda come out his nose, for any reason, but tea had to be a comparably painful experience.  He teared up as the tea rushed up his sinuses and down his throat.  Cupping nose and mouth with his hand, Trowa glared at Duo.

“What are you talking about,” he demanded once he was sure tea wasn’t going to drip out of his nose.  Duo tilted his head.

“Something happened between you two, right? That’s why you weren’t sleeping.” Duo shook his head and set his hand on Trowa’s shoulder.  “He’s not worth sleeping pills, I promise.”

Trowa twisted away from the touch.  “What exactly makes you think I have a boyfriend?”

Duo smirked a bit.  “You weren’t exactly shy about it,” he said.  Trowa sneered at him until Duo sighed. “Fine, Heero told me.”  Duo sighed, folding his arms and sinking back against the mirror.  “No one ever lets me have any credit.”

Trowa pinched the bridge of his nose.  “When.”

“Saturday, on our way to work.”  

“I can’t imagine,” Trowa said while rubbing his eyes, “how _that_ came up.”

“You drugged yourself into hysterics.  Did you really think we weren’t going to wonder why?”

“And naturally ‘boyfriend’ was the first that came to mind.”

“Third.  A lot of shit causes insomnia.” Trowa snorted.  Duo sighed.  “Look, it’s not like I actually meant it.  It was total sarcasm.  I thought, you know, it was impossible.  It’s not my fault Heero started strangling the steering wheel when I mentioned it.”

Trowa’s pulse thudded in his ears.  “Impossible.”  What exactly: that Trowa had a boyfriend now, or that he could have a one, period?  Trowa ground his teeth.  Impossible.  Total sarcasm.  Then Trowa wanted to know exactly what the last few months were, if they weren’t— 

_Aren’t we defensive?_

Trowa stiffened.  He wasn’t defensive.  There was nothing to be defensive over.  Fahd wasn’t a boyfriend.  He wasn’t his boyfriend.  He was an unfortunate circumstance.

_One that keeps the nightmares away, like a good boyfriend should.  And don’t even think that you haven’t been itching to see him all weekend._

Not by choice.  Fahd had done _something_ to him.  He had done something to his head, and Trowa couldn’t fix it.  Not yet.  He was not his boyfriend.  Trowa would gladly put a bullet between the bastard’s eyes, but if he wanted to sleep again, Trowa needed him.  He didn’t want him.  He needed him.   

_Keep telling yourself that._

Trowa swallowed.  Desperate for a distraction from the too familiar, too mocking lilt, Trowa latched onto Duo’s commentary.

“What did the steering wheel ever do to him?”

“Nothing,” Duo said after eyeing Trowa for a few seconds.  “I figured that he didn’t like whoever it is.  He’s like that, you know, but he said he doesn’t know who you’re seeing.  And trust me, he’s too pissed off about that to be lying.”

A response which would only get worse if Heero did know.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t snooped.”

“Heero does have morals.  That or you hide stuff really well.”   They were quiet for a moment.  Duo turned back t him and frowned.  “So not boyfriend issues?”

Trowa struggled against a flinch.  “No.”

“And he’s really not a Preventer?”

“Duo, I don’t see how that’s relevant at all.”

He shrugged once before crossing his arms. “The pharmacy is closed, by the way.”

Trowa flinched that time.

“I warned you.  I told you to just take the one—”

“Duo.”

“—but what the fuck do I know?  I only take them all the time.”

Trowa ran a hand through his hair.  “Duo, I need a handful of aspirin to kill a headache.”

“That wasn’t aspirin.”

“I wanted it to actually work.”

Duo smiled unpleasantly.  “Worked a little too well, didn’t it?”

Most of the details of that nightmare were lost to him, but Trowa knew he could find them if he tried.  He wouldn’t.  He had had a few details to clutch and shake over when he woke up the first time; morbid curiosity had him seeking more.  Trowa had thought that nothing could be worse than hearing Doc again, calmly promising emasculation while he drove his fingers in.  Then he heard _them_ —all of them—groaning as he was smothered between Doc and a rapist; Trowa couldn’t tell if the noise was disgust or desire.  He couldn’t decide which would have been worse.

He stopped looking after that.

Duo seemed to notice the way Trowa shuddered (more than shuddered, if he choose to the too-familiar prickling at the corners of his eyes).  Duo shifted and rubbed the back of his neck.

“It was pretty fucked up, huh,” he asked.  Trowa snorted quietly.  “Yeah, I’d guess it have to be with, well, you know.”

Quatre had told Trowa, between bouts of sickness and loathing, about his reaction.  Trowa had already promised to pay for the door repairs if he couldn’t manage them himself. 

“That was not supposed to happen,” he said, shifting against the mirror. 

Duo took the phrase for the apology it was meant to be.  “I know.  I told them you weren’t the type.”  Duo paused.  “There weren’t anything else, right?”

“Not under the pillow.”

 “Just as long as two people aren’t keeping submachine guns in the house.”

 The space beneath his bed was a little too narrow to fit one of those.  Besides, Trowa preferred the somewhat quieter firearms.

There was no clock besides Duo’s phone, but they both decided they had sat long enough within a few seconds of each other.  Trowa stuffed his trash back into the lunch bag.  Duo stowed his trash in the duffle bag after pulling out a spare shirt.  Trowa watched him change with mild envy.  Trowa had played defensive, so sweat was at a minimum, but he could still feel the faint itch of drying salt on his back and arms.  It was irritating. 

But not quite as irritating as having to flash a corset at Duo.  Trowa wasn’t sure Duo would be able to stop himself from say something, and Trowa didn’t want to hear it.

Trowa was buttoning his cuffs when Duo, shirt half tucked in, turned. “Are you sure it’s not a Preventer?”

“Why is this so fascinating to you two?”

“Are you sure?  Positive?”

“I think I would know.”

“I guess you would,” Duo sighed.  He zipped up his pants.  “It’s just a matter of time now, then.”

“Time until what?”

“Until you move out.”  Duo was very focused on his cuffs when he said it, so he missed Trowa’s mouth dropping open.  

Move?  Move where?

Duo took the silence for assent.  “I mean I get it.  It’s serious, right?  You see the guy pretty much every day—”

“Says who?”

“That is where you go when you don’t come home, right?  Where you drive off to on weekends?”

Trowa wasn’t nearly sentimental enough to make visiting Catherine every weekend a workable lie.

“It’s okay,” Duo said, although his smile was oddly strained.  “I’d do it, too.  But you could have told us.”

Told them what?  That he was sleeping with a terrorist?  One who just happened to be the center of the Preventers’ attention?  !

“It’s not that serious,” Trowa said.  Duo shook his head.

“Sure.  Just warn us before you rent a moving van.  We can borrow ‘Fei’s truck.”

“I’m not going to move.”  Duo shrugged, clearly having already accepted that it was inevitable.  “Duo, I don’t want to move.”

“But does he?”

That didn’t matter, because Fahd was never going to hear about it.  Trowa knew that if Fahd got so much as a hint that they would accept Trowa’s moving out, Fahd would tie him to the bed and keep him there like some personal pet.

A small shiver went up his spine; he demanded it to be revulsion.

“So,” Duo said, shouldering the duffle bag, “are we ever going to meet him?”

Outside of arresting him or picking up his corpse _?_   Trowa turned away.

“What?  You’re not the skeleton in some politician’s closet, are you?”  Duo meant it as a joke.  Trowa knew he had.  He still stiffened for a moment.  Lunch bag tight in his fist, Trowa turned and hurried towards the door. Behind him, Duo cursed. 

“Oh shit, Trowa.  You don’t do anything halfway, do you?”

*-----*-----*

“What happened to you?”

Trowa could have asked Fahd the same thing, slouched as he was over the paper-piled dinette.  He looked like he had slept in his clothes, for several nights in a row, and that the sleep had been short and unpleasant.  Above the dark, sleep-deprivation bruises, though, Fahd’s eyes burned with their usual intensity.  And something else that was a bit unstable.  Fahd ran that wild gaze over Trowa’s body.  He frowned more.

Trowa supposed he might look a little frantic. 

Despite his best efforts, and a growing pile of paperwork, Trowa had spent the latter part of his work day dwelling on his conversation with Duo.  And it wasn’t the inanity of Duo’s suggestions, but the possibilities that he had obsessed over.

Trowa would probably never sleep again, and certainly never sleep well, if he continued sleeping alone.  Living with the others meant sleeping alone at least a few nights a week.  And while Trowa thought that being drug-free would prevent him from lashing out, he didn’t want to take that chance.  The knife had lodged itself a full three inches into the wood.  He didn’t need to imagine how deep that kind of force could drive a knife into a body, if someone chanced on him during a nightmare.  

He couldn’t sleep alone and not be a danger.  The weekend had proven that.  Trowa had to be with someone, little though he liked it.  Have someone at his back.  He couldn’t ask _them_.  There was no guarantee he could sleep well with any of them, and it was much more dangerous to sleep with the snake in the bed than down the hall.  And there was every guarantee that he would wake from some terror and have to endure their probing. 

Besides, Trowa was quite sure their beds were all full.

This left him, under no will of his own, with Fahd as his only logical bed partner.  The problem was where.  Being both a politician and a terrorist, it was more than impossible to have him in the house.  Trowa’s moving in was more likely but equally problematic.  Heero would not be able to stop himself from uncovering the name of Trowa’s “secret lover” if Trowa upped and left.  It would only be a matter of time before Fahd was arrested or killed.  And then Trowa would not only be considered an accessory to terrorism—even possibly a rogue agent—but he would be without any means of safe sleep.

That was, of course, only if Fahd decided not to run.  Which Trowa doubted.  Considering the extent of the man’s influence, it would be easy for Fahd to catch a whisper of Heero and the Preventers’ movements and disappear with perfectly viable excuses.

The question was: would Trowa try to go with him?

The fact that Trowa had decided he would (if Fahd allowed it, and the man would probably tire of him by that point and leave without Trowa, and that chilled Trowa with something that was a little too much like fear) was not nearly as distressing as his own reasoning. 

Trowa would get more than just sleep if he stayed.  He would get a micromanaging of his diet, and probably later his life, that bordered on abusive.  He would get teasing that was just short of baiting and cruel.  He would get sex that rattled and bruised his body before leaving his head floating in that white haze.  Trowa would get so much deception and torment veiled in gentle touches and words and concern, that the inevitable brutality was almost worth it.

Trowa would get mind-fucking wrapped up in so much false affection that he would forget he was being mind-fucked at all.  With that much slippery concern and attention, he could pretend that the violence and abandonment that his overactive mind knew was approaching would never really come.  Trowa could actually allow, perhaps even embrace, the inevitability of the violent conclusion so long as it came with that brittle, fake love.

Trowa found, as he considered it all afternoon, that he wanted that.

Of course, when he had reached that conclusion, Trowa rejected it.  He flinched from it with enough force to push his desk chair back an inch.  Fahd was a terrorist: an extortionist, raping terrorist.  There was no excuse for the callous way he treated Trowa.  There was no excuse for the way he manipulated Trowa for sex and his own amusement.  Trowa wasn’t that desperate.

Except that he was.  He was beyond desperate.  Despite knowing that they were designed to manipulate him, Trowa still found himself craving those small affections Fahd teased and baited him with.  Chest tightening, mouth watering craved the text messages and the lingering warmth from a finger skimming along his side.  He craved the white haze and the warmth that left him shivering.  He craved that short instance of pleasure with nothing short of an addict’s need.

He could get affection nowhere else.  They wouldn’t give it to him; Trowa didn’t deserve it from them.  He didn’t deserve anything from them.  But Fahd.  Fahd was happy to provide him a false affection that he was sure would leave him miserable in the end. He was more than happy to provide it, and it was much more than Trowa deserved. 

Not that he really, actually, _wanted_ it.

Trowa’s head had _still_ been in spinning between reason, acceptance, and denial when Nizar finally picked him up in the alley.  It occupied his thoughts so much that he forgot to let his stomach drop on sudden stops or to worry at his cheek during sharp turns.  He forgot his customary attempt to twist out of Nizar’s grip when he started leading him to the elevator. 

Trowa had allowed himself to be led: too distracted to struggle, too distracted to notice the suspicion in Nizar’s fingers. 

Fahd, leaning forward now, was expecting some sort of answer.  Trowa gave a jerky, almost spasming, shrug. 

“Nothing happened,” he said.

Fahd stared for a moment before glancing at Nizar.  Nizar muttered something under his breath, waving a hand in Trowa’s generally direction before turning away.  He went grumbling back into the hall, probably to the side table that always had folders on it.  Fahd sighed and shook his head.

“Well, I had hoped to finish before you got here.”

Trowa nodded once.  He was sure Fahd had, whatever it was.  Trowa thought it was something difficult.  something frustrating.  It was probably related to whatever had kept Fahd away for those long three weeks.  It was something critical.  Something that shook the foundation of everything Fahd worked for.  Kept him away.  Kept him up at night.  It was something that the Preventers probably needed.  Trowa eyed the piles of papers for less than ten seconds, exhaustion and resignation having tempered his usual curiosity.

“There are leftovers and fresh bread,” Fahd said turning back to his work.  “Help yourself.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“As if that’s a surprise.  Eat anyway.”

Trowa shook his head.  “I need to sleep,” he said, somehow managing to keep desperation out of his voice. 

Fahd sighed but nodded.  “Fine, fine, but you’re eating later.  I’m tired of feeling all of your ribs—”

“I need to sleep.”

Fahd paused as he reached for another paper.  Trowa fought down a shiver as his black eyes rose.  They followed the contours of his face, the outline of his body, the minute tremors of his hands, before stopping again at his eyes and searching.  Whatever Fahd saw there made him lean his chin on his fist.

“You know where the bedroom is.”     

Trowa hadn’t even considered that Fahd wasn’t aware of what he done.  He sat there, though, looking at Trowa like he didn’t.  Like he didn’t know.  _Like he hadn’t planned this._ Trowa stiffened.  That was ridiculous.  This wasn’t an accident; it couldn’t be.  Fahd was just up to something.  He was trying to bait Trowa into saying or doing something. 

Which he wouldn’t, even if he knew exactly what Fahd wanted.  Trowa couldn’t bring himself to do that, even with the resignation and the realization and the low chuckling in the back of his head.  It was a step he couldn’t make just yet.

_In a couple more days?  Who knows?_

Trowa shook his head once.  He walked over to the dinette, sat down in his usual seat, and waited.  Eventually, Fahd would “understand,” or get bored enough or irritated enough to drag Trowa to the bedroom.  Trowa had waited for more than three weeks.  What was another hour?

“I thought you said you needed sleep,” Fahd said. 

“I did.”

“And yet here you are.”

Fahd was definitely up to something, and Trowa knew the name of this game.  He wanted Trowa to beg, which set Trowa’s teeth on edge.  He wasn’t ready for that.  Trowa considered getting some bread, if only to have something to do—and someone here knew of a very good bakery that Trowa was not going to ask about—when Fahd suddenly grabbed his wrist.

“Honestly,” he sighed, standing.  Fahd tucked one of the smaller piles of papers under his arm before tugging Trowa out of his chair.  “You are so spoiled.”

Trowa snarled without heat and gave only a few token tugs on the hard grip as Fahd led him down to the bedroom.  He didn’t want to wait any longer, but he was realistic.  Trowa had already resigned himself to rough handling for much longer than he liked.  It would end, though. Eventually, and then Trowa would finally have white oblivion and a long, empty sleep.   

At least Fahd wasn’t a patient man.  _Five minutes and I’m naked.  Tops._ Trowa’s stomach fluttered.

*-----*-----*

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.  Fahd wasn’t sure _what_ it was supposed to be, but as he sat back in bed, unread papers in one hand and the fingers of the other playing idly on the delicate dip of 03’s waist, he was suddenly certain that these little domestic moments were not supposed to be happening.

Not that he was complaining.

03 shifted.  Fahd watched him curl his fingers and toes.  A crease marred 03’s otherwise expressionless face.  He inched closer to the solid warmth of Fahd’s thigh.  Fahd pulled him closer and slid his fingers down to a small spot in the small of 03’s back.  He rubbed it slowly.  03 settled almost immediately. 

“Now you behave,” Fahd muttered.  For whatever reason, 03 had had nothing short of a minor tantrum after they entered the bedroom.  Something about Fahd propping up the pillows for his back had rubbed the former pilot wrong.  Of course, his response to 03 hadn’t helped; the former pilot hated being treated like a child.  For a little extra salt in the wound, Fahd had none-too-gently reminded him that the demands of a politician were much heavier than a paper pusher, even one in law enforcement.

Fahd hadn’t used that particular barb since the very early stages of their arrangement, and he had wondered if familiarity had dulled its sting.  So Fahd was pleasantly surprised when 03’s cheeks reddened and fists tightened. 

Of course, the dig had had the exact opposite effect from what Fahd really wanted.  03 blatantly refused to go anywhere near the bed.  Fahd finally had to threaten him with a turn over his lap.  03 had a particular dislike for spankings, but he had looked willing to endure one for pride’s sake and the off chance of kicking Fahd in the head.  

For a moment, anyway.

Eventually, 03 had reluctantly crawled into bed, where he put a foot of mattress and duvet between them before proceeding to sulk.  With his back to Fahd, 03 had curled his knees as close to his chest as he could without looking fetal and kept his arms close, except for when he swatted at one of Fahd’s hands whenever they wandered away from his paperwork.  After a while, though, the sleep 03 had claimed to need caught up with him.  Fahd had watched the lithe body loosen with a mild smile, finally setting his hand on the slight hip when 03 rolled towards him.

“See how much better it is when you behave?” he murmured.  03 wasn’t, of course.  03 had surrendered from exhaustion, which was enormously different.  03 suddenly twitched in a particularly kicking sort of way, as if he had somehow heard Fahd through the sheer weight of his exhaustion.  Fahd smiled.

He would never get 03 to behave.  The tightly wound boy would fight him every step, giving in only on occasion, only when it suited him, only when he would earn something particular for it.  03 would never allow himself to be convinced that he enjoyed attention.  He would never relax his guard or body.  He would never allow his body to melt into rhythms of sex.  He would never tremble with desire or howl with pleasure.  He would never not bleed.  

Which was probably just as well.  Complacency and obedience were boring.  They had been Fahd’s fare for most of his sexual life: the easiest flavors of partners to come by, considering his social standing.  There was only so much groveling he could take before his attention waned.  Fear was a little rarer, and therefore finer: a spice that Fahd enjoyed all too briefly.  Desperation always turned fear into obedience, and boredom inevitably followed.

Once, though, he had had the pleasure of a rebel.  One that had been particularly fond of biting.  Fahd derived such a deep satisfaction from the man’s ultimate surrender that he might have endured the rebel’s degeneration into passivity for a time.  But the other had apparently agreed with Fahd about the excitement of obedience, and hung himself not a day afterwards.  Lover or no, Fahd would not have been able to stop the traitor’s eventual execution so he had thought it was just as well.

03 was finer than that, and relatively safe from execution.  The former pilot had such a unique flavor.   Persistent.  Resilient.  03 hated being toyed with.  He always jumped at the chance to prove he was not beaten.  He seemed to delight in drawing blood where and when he could.   And when he was finally pinned down, by manacles or body, he didn’t surrender.  03 _endured_.  He dared Fahd to claim he had broken him.  He dared him, with that spirit that never surrendered but only feigned retreat under the crushing pressure of pleasure, to call him conquered.

Fahd would never risk losing the most interesting thing that had ever come kicking to his bed.

03 shifted and grimaced.  His hand drifted sleepily to his side, to the soft flesh just above his hip bone.  He touched at the edge of his dress shirt, searching sleepily for the hard edge of the corset.  It must have dug pinched him when he moved.   Fahd caught his fingers gently.  03 whined and squirmed.

He tossed the unread papers on the side table before rolling onto his side and stroking the backs of 03’s captured fingers.  03 stilled.  Fahd curled a leg around his lightly tangled ones, drawing them closer and holding the lethal limbs still.   He draped his arm over the boy’s side as he waited.  03 shifted.  His eyelids fluttered but stayed closed.  Fahd pressed closer and plucked at the edge of the dress shirt.

As long as he kept up some sort of light caress—the hands and back being particular favorites—Fahd could do, and had done, quite a few things to the prone body.  For now, though, he used the weakness to sneak a hand along the back of the corset, loosening the difficult clasps enough to shift it away from sensitive flesh.

03 sighed and burrowed into the space between Fahd’s chest and the mattress.

Although he had seen it countless times, Fahd was tempted to expose the unique body.  Running his fingers over the hard masculine planes and soft feminine curves, over small warm breasts and ballsack, never got boring.  That, however, involved a bit more bending than Fahd thought was safe; 03 didn’t always sleep deeply.  For the moment, Fahd contented himself with fingering the slightly exposed spine, until there was a knock on the door.               

Fahd waited until the third, slightly battering knock before sliding his arms out from underneath 03 and rolling off the bed.  The boy curled into himself with a sleepy grumble. 

“This had better be good,” Fahd muttered as he opened the door. 

Nizar stood outside his door as he always did: slightly crooked.  Head and hip cocked to opposite sides, he exuded the heavy arrogance of a man with a long service record and far too many successes.  It was well-deserved, and extremely irritating.

Nizar eyed his state of dress with mild surprise. Fahd crossed his arms.  “I do have some priorities.  Besides, he needed the sleep.”

Nizar sneered at the sleeping pilot once before shoving the manila folders into Fahd’s chest.  He turned on his heel and left, muttering obscenities.

He disapproved of 03, but since Nizar tended to disapprove of most things Fahd did, Fahd was neither surprised nor worried.  Nizar would give in eventually.  He always did, and then he would trade the glowers for uninterested glances and the lectures for veiled suggestions of how to cut ties cleanly.   

He was being persistent this time, though, which was surprising.  Usually, it took Nizar about a week to accept and dismiss whatever whim Fahd had taken to.  Two weeks at the very most.  He never allowed his attention to be diverted for longer than that; there were always much more pressing matters than Fahd’s “tumultuous” sex life.  But Fahd had had 03 for more than a week—closer to a few months now—and apart from a few rare moments, Nizar acted like it was only the second day.  He still insisted on the blindfold.  He still demanded 03 was out within 72 hours.    He still watched 03 like he was going to pull a pistol out of his mouth.

_It’d never fit in his mouth.  Up his cunt, maybe. **Maybe**._   Considering how 03 tensed when Fahd so much as glanced at the little-used hole, though, he doubted it.

Fahd might mention that during Nizar’s next lecture.  He wondered which red Nizar would turn.  There was, after all, a difference between rage-red and horrified-red.  It was tempting, and such a logical and anatomically-based way to show Nizar how ridiculous he was being.  But Fahd wouldn’t.  He knew how much of his time he would waste arguing with a man determined to be miserable.

So Fahd would bear Nizar’s irritation.  He would wait the man out with a patience that had already been tried by someone much more volatile.  Fahd wondered if he should tell his dear advisor how similar he was to 03 sometimes.

“He’ll definitely shot him then,” Fahd said.  

Fahd thumbed through the contents of the folders: daily-, weekly-, and monthly-reports about the outposts; expense reports and supply demands from bases and skirmish units; profiles on targets and potential traitors; requests.  Pages and pages of requests: for meetings; for interviews; for comments about the state of the country, about the family’s future, about the funeral.  As if Fahd had nothing better to do than pander to the gossip-gobbling reporters and tabloids.

He considered throwing them away.  “Losing” them was probably better than losing his temper with a far-from-innocent reporter asking far-from-innocent questions about how much, or little, his father’s death meant to the country and him.  After considering Nizar’s reaction, though, and how little he wanted to lose 03, Fahd moved the requests to the top of the pile.  Dinner before dessert, as it were.

Considering the best non-committal answers, Fahd turned back to the bed.  03 had moved.  He had twisted himself around and was lying mostly on his stomach with his head buried in a pillow.  The boy was not relaxed, however.  His arms were tightly crossed beneath him, his fingers digging into his sides.  They twitched occasionally.  Fahd approached the bed.  As he knelt on the edge, he heard the distinct sound of pillow-smothered whimpering. 

03 hadn’t made that sound in  _months_.

Folders abandoned on the side table, Fahd stretched out beside 03.  He ran his fingers along his side, a gentle warning touch before approaching the small of 03’s back.  The boy flinched hard.  Fahd sighed and prepared himself.  03 only ever flinched when he had fallen into that place where everything just fueled his distress.  If he couldn’t be coaxed back to sleep, he had to be woken up.  And then restrained.

Fahd, watching the lightly trembling body, wrapped his fingers around one of the too-lean shoulders and squeezed.  03 froze.  Every muscle in the boy’s body tightened.  Fahd knew the eyes had snapped opened and stared sightlessly into the pillow, first bewildered by the abrupt way he had been disconnected from whatever he was dreaming and then damn sure that he was, in fact, not.  Fahd had only a few seconds to trap the smaller body before it snapped.

Fahd already had 03 mostly pinned when he started struggling.  Fahd shifted one of his knees carefully, mindful of the thrashing limbs, and wrapped it tightly around the boy’s knees.  03 let out a muffled cry as he squirmed his legs and hips uselessly.  03 brought his head back.  Fahd dodged it narrowly and pressed down on the top of his back.  03 screeched.  He twisted his shoulders.  Fahd lay over him, sliding his arms beneath him and pinning 03’s thrashing arms to his chest.

03 twisted and bucked, thrashing against his human cage like a wounded and frightened animal.  Fahd flinched as small, hard bones of his hips and elbows jabbed into him.  Fahd dug into the sensitive joints of his knees and wrists, grinding the smaller hand bones together.  The boy just continued to struggle.  Growling himself, Fahd took both of the clawing hands in one and grabbed 03’s hair with the other.  He pulled.  The pillow came up with the boy’s head.   

“I don’t know where you think you are, but you aren’t.  That’s enough.”

Again, 03 froze.  This time, however, Fahd heard the boy’s breathing hitch.   _Good, he’s confused._   After a few seconds 03 let out a groan that was both distressed and embarrassed.  His body relaxed some.  Fahd loosened his grip on 03’s wrists and hair.  The pillow fell back to the bed.

Fahd was about to release his hands to rub his side when 03 tensed again.  He started to squirm.  Fahd sneered and gripped the wrists hard.  When Fahd noticed the rapid way 03 was swallowing, however, he released him.  03 tumbled off the bed and scrambled out of the room. 

Fahd could count on one hand the number of times 03 had woken up violently ill.  Each had occurred in the early weeks of their relationship and almost always after some terrible nightmare 03 refused to discuss.  And each had been accompanied by an expression Fahd remembered far too clearly.  Exploiting the pleasure points on his body kept that face at bay.  It had done more, actually.  03 had relaxed into having a sleeping partner rather quickly thanks to those little points.  Now, so long as there was solid warmth at his back, or better yet an arm over his waist, 03 slept fairly deeply.  He twitched or whined on occasion, but Fahd could easily coax him back to sleep. 

He could count the times 03 had woken up like this on one hand.  In about same number of minutes, 03 had gone from sleeping well to making himself sick with whatever was going on in his head.  It couldn’t just be coincidence that Fahd hadn’t been in the bed, either.  

_Something happened_ , Fahd decided while looking at the teeth marks in the pillow.  Something happened, something drastic, and it happened quite a while ago.  It would have had to; 03 needed at least of week to teach himself how to gag himself in his sleep.

There was a creak by the door.  Fahd looked over.  03 leaned against the doorframe, a trembling hand gripping his probably still-churning stomach.  Fahd, a bit concerned by the shaking and the swaying, sat up.  The movement brought up 03’s bowed head. 

Even though he was expecting it, Fahd’s breath caught when he saw his face.   03 was pale, his expression strained.  The taut skin of his mouth and the fevered glow of cheeks spoke of a thousand unpleasant, and normally secret, thoughts and memories.  The stiff swallows whispered out his fear, and the rapid blinking of his dull, moist eyes his misery.  Fahd knew that if he looked long enough, he would see the lower lip start.

03 had been stripped of his guard.  Much the same way he had been that first time in bed.  Much the same way Ilham had.  Especially when Ilham looked at his crutches when he thought he was alone and remembered how they kept from his place as first-born.

Suppressing a shudder—he tried not to think about his older brother—Fahd sat back against the pillows.  He folded his arms, cocked his head to one side, and smiled.

“This seems rather familiar,” he said. 

03 blinked, slow and slightly disjointed.  Fahd worried the boy still wasn’t fully connected to reality.  He was preparing to catch him if he fell or lashed out when 03’s face shifted.  The dull eyes cleared and narrowed while the mouth worked itself into something closer to its usual expressionless line.  03 straightened with a silent huff. 

“Hardly.  I was sick over the weekend." 

Fahd wasn’t nearly impressed enough with 03’s ability to shove aside his misery to ignore that.  “Sick?” 

03 shifted, running his fingers along his sides and up his back.  He scowled.  “Did you loosen it?” 

“Sick with what?”

“You stripped me in my sleep?”

Fahd rolled his eyes.  “Obviously not.  You were clawing at it.”  03 frowned at him before bending back and sliding his hands beneath the back of his shirt.  “Sick with what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Fahd swept him with a critical eye.  03 did look a little worse than normal.  Paler, actually.  And now that Fahd thought about it, he really hadn’t seemed all that well in the kitchen.  He had been twitching slightly when he sat down at the dinette, almost trembling.  His eyes had been a little glassy and anxious. 

And he looked thinner.  Again.

“Sick.  With.  What,” Fahd repeated, sitting forward.

03 straightened and brought his hands out from his shirt.  The slow, calculated movements betrayed his  hesitation better than a chewed lip.  03 was considering something. 

“Food poisoning,” he said in a clear and steady voice, looking Fahd in the eye.  The boy was aware, then, that flu and stomach viruses took longer than a few days to get over.

“You eat vegetables and bread.”

A muscle in his neck tightened as he clenched his jaw.  “Spoiled milk.”

Except 03 hated milk and Fahd knew it.  He had offered it at dinner once.  The boy had made the most amusing face as he pushed it away.  When pressed, he had assured Fahd it was not a matter of ethics but one of taste.  Fahd actually laughed when 03 used the word “disgusting.”  That is, until 03 had tossed the milk in his face.  He had gotten a round over the couch after that.

03 must have realized where Fahd’s thoughts would go, because he folded his arms and clarified.  “In my tea.”

Fahd rose.  He walked to 03, frowning.  For his part, 03 didn’t so much as lock his knees.  He kept his arms over his chest and lifted his chin the closer to Fahd came.  It was only when he was a few inches from him, towering over him, forcing the boy’s head back to look at him, that 03 swallowed.

“If there was enough in it to make you sick, you’d toss it out.” 

“Someone else made it.  They didn’t ask.”

“That’s never stopped you before.” 

Something flickered across his face.  “Their feelings actually mattered.”

Fahd smiled.  He leaned on the doorframe, trapping 03 between the wood and his chest.  03’s breath hitched before quicken.  He glanced back at the wood pressed against his spine briefly.

“I suggest you tell the truth now, Trowa.” He said.  03 stared at him for a moment.  His arms tightened over his chest.

“Spoiled milk.”

Fahd sighed.  The sound was barely out of his mouth before Fahd grabbed 03 by the front of the shirt and pulled him forward.  For all of his outward calm, 03 was still unsteady.  He twisted feebly, trying to use a sudden drop of his weight to pull Fahd off balance.  Fahd stepped into the movement, releasing his shirt and catching his hips.  It was then just a matter of lifting the boy over his shoulder.  And avoiding sharp elbows. 

03 swore as he was handled.  He swore louder when Fahd got hold of his kicking legs and held them down.  The swearing reached a colorful peak after Fahd kicked the door closed and headed towards the bed.

Given the opportunity, 03 could contort in impossible ways the moment he was released.  He could twist to the point of breaking and get a fist or a heel in range of Fahd’s temple.  So Fahd did not sit at the edge of the bed, where 03 could get additional leverage from the floor.  Fahd knelt in the center of the mattress, facing the foot of the bed.  He leaned sideways until 03 rolled off his shoulders.  03 was too focused on stopping the spinning to notice Fahd pulling his waist onto his lap.  The boy’s head and shoulders disappeared over the edge of the bed.

Given enough time, 03 could still cause trouble.  Even now, the muscles in his back were moving hard and fast as he tried to get his arms beneath him.  Fahd didn’t waste precious time with a warning. 

Clothed, the contact between his hand and 03’s rear didn’t have the same sharp, satisfying ring.  But 03 still let out his usually surprised, and slightly horrified, gasp.  Fahd didn’t pause after the first hit like he usually did.  He didn’t give 03 the option of talking this time (even though he never took it).  So he got three more startled before 03 tensed his body and ground his teeth against the assault. 

He still didn’t understand that tensing made it worse. 

Fahd had counted eight silently by the time 03’s back started to tremble.  At twelve, 03 started wiggling.  He growled when Fahd tightened his arm around them.  At sixteen, he let out a nasally groan from behind his teeth.

“Stop lying to me,” Fahd said, leaning over his back.  He wasn’t too close to his ear, so when 03 snapped his head back, he missed Fahd’s face entirely.  Fahd spanked him hard.

“Are you sure you want a sore ass for work tomorrow?”

“I’d be sore anyway,” he said through his teeth.

Fahd spanked him again.  This time, 03 flinched. 

Fahd lay over his back, stroking the clothed but stinging backside and feeling the deep, shaking breaths 03 took.  He was just this side of panting.  A good sign.  The body beneath Fahd flexed. 

“It was a reaction.  That’s all.”

Fahd squeezed the skin in his hand.  “A reaction to what?  And do not say ‘milk’.”

03 was silent.  He shifted a bit: first his hips, then his legs, then his shoulders.  It could have been adjustment, removing a few aches the heavier body on him was causing.  Fahd knew it wasn’t.  03 was hesitating.  He was practically wringing his hands and shuffling his feet with those small shifts.  He was nervous.   _What did you do?_

“To medicine,” he said finally.  It was not the answer Fahd expected.  He sat up a bit.

“An allergic reaction?  What did you take?”

03 shifted again, this time digging his toes into the bedding.  From nervous to scared..  As if the real answer was worse than a lie.  It probably was.

“What did you take?” he repeated. 

03 hesitated for a few seconds before answering steadily, “Sleeping pills.”

Sleeping pills.  He had taken sleeping pills?  Fahd sat back.  Why would 03 take sleeping pills?  He always seemed oddly accepting of insomnia.  He always struck Fahd as being very cautious about ingesting mild-altering chemicals.  He could have, of course, finally decided he needed more sleep.   _When hell freezes over._

It could have been prescribed, though: forced upon him after some sort of evaluation.  That was possible; he had probably affected 03’s performance quite a lot in the last few months.  If 03’s prospects were slimmer than Fahd had realized, the boy could have bent to his superiors’ wills.  He might not have even known that he had an allergy; people developed them all the time.

Except it couldn’t have been an allergic reaction.  An allergic reaction was innocent, and innocence did not explaining 03’s reluctance.  Guilt, however, did.  03 had taken them knowingly.  He had taken enough to make himself sick.  He had overdosed.  People only overdosed if they were stupid or suicidal.

03 was a lot of things; stupid wasn’t one of them.

Nor was he suicidal.  At least Fahd didn’t think so.  03 showed none of the classic signs.  At least, none of the ones that Fahd expected, the ones he had learned through experience.  The ones he had ignored.  03 wasn’t slate-eyed and silent like the rebel, or poking his wrists with a pen as he chatted like Fahd’s schoolmate.  He was not smiling constantly at some private pleasure like his mother.

03 wasn’t stupid or suicidal.  So why did he overdose?

Fahd growled in frustration.  03 shifted in his lap.   Snaking an arm around the boy’s hips, Fahd leaned over his back again.  “You overdosed.”

“I didn’t.”

“You took enough sleeping pills to get yourself sick.  That’s an overdose.”

“Overdosing is suicide.  I’m not dead.”

“Not yet,” he growled.  Fahd gripped the front of 03’s dress pants.  03 squirmed as Fahd popped the button easily.  “You overdosed.”

“Stop.”

Fahd pulled his head back by the hair.  “You overdosed.  Why?”

“I didn’t,” 03 said through his teeth.

“Don’t lie to me,” he snarled.  03 kicked as the zipper went down.

“Let go.”

“Why did you take them?”

“Let go!”

Fahd yanked 03’s pants down.  03 struggled.  Fahd tangled the pants around his kicking legs before shoving the squirming body off his lap.  The boy grunted but immediately started struggling to roll over.  Fahd pinned one of his thighs down with his knee and gripped the back of 03’s neck.  03 snarled and clawed at Fahd’s hand.

“Get off me,” he snarled.  The words broke off in a gasp as Fahd spanked him hard enough to jerk him forward an inch.  “Bastard!”

“Tell me why you overdosed.”

“I didn’t,” 03 spat.  He dug into Fahd’s wrist and twisted as hard as he could.  Fahd flinched and spanked him another inch off the mattress.  03’s fingers twitched around his wrist.

“Tell me why,” he growled slowly into his ear.  03 twisted.  Fahd squeezed the burning flesh in his hand.  03 snarled and whipped his head towards him.  Pulling back, Fahd fumbled with his belt.  When he heard the soft chink of metal, 03 stilled.

Fahd pulled the belt from the loops, the whisper of leather against fabric making 03 quiver.  He was too infuriated, though, to be more than mildly interested in the reactions.  The end of the belt brushed against 03.  He flinched away from it, yelling before Fahd even opened his mouth.

“You weren’t there!”

There was an unusual hysteria to his voice.  Coupled with the unusual answer, it made Fahd pause.  He glanced between the belt and trembling back once before tossing the belt aside.  He rolled 03 over, the vice Fahd had on his neck loosening into a gentler, supportive hold on his head. 

03’s face was tight.  The muscles in his neck strained to hold his head up and hold his emotions in.   His eyes were clenched shut, hiding what Fahd knew was a fevered, distant stare.  03 breathed rapidly through his nose.  When Fahd called his name, 03 flinched away. 

He could not be pushed anymore.  Not tonight, which was a shame.  Fahd’s curiosity had been peaked and frustrated repeatedly.  It demanded satisfaction.  But pushing 03 now would be reckless.  The boy’s stubbornness was vast but not limitless.  Push him now, and Fahd would most likely find 03’s limit.  And then run straight through it.  Fahd was not ready for that. 

Nor was he ready to ignore his nagging curiosity.  There were too many questions now.  But 03 was too fragile at the moment to withstand curiosity. 

He had other options, though.

Fahd started 03’s neck, kneading the clammy nape gently with his fingers.  03 inhaled sharply.  His brow knitted when Fahd’s fingers began moving in slow circles, the direction switching every so often.  03 swallowed repeatedly.  In a few minutes, though, 03 only swallowed every few seconds, and then every so often, and not at all.  His eyelids fluttered.  Fahd caught a sliver of green as 03 looked up at him.  The gaze was.  Fahd’s thumb rubbed at the small dip just beneath his head.  03 let out a reluctant sigh.

Wrapping an arm carefully beneath 03’s back, Fahd rocked back.  He settled on the bed and pulled 03 over him.  The boy squirmed against his chest.  Fahd stroked the small of his back before cupping his chin.  His thumb stretched around to 03’s neck and stroked slowly.  03 pushed against his chest.  Fahd pressed squeezed a little, forcing his head back.

“No.”

Fahd nipped at the top of his throat. “Don’t start.”

03 fisted Fahd’s shirt.  Fahd tsked against his neck.  He wrapped his free arm around 03’s waist, pushing the tense hips down.   Fahd rocked against him.  03 jerked.  Fahd smirked as he felt a warm throb from the boy’s crotch.

“Relax,” he said.

03 pushed at him with his fists, shaking his head.  Fahd stroked his bared throat with his tongue, rocking his hips.  03 swallowed, the delicate jugular bobbing against Fahd’s lip.  Fahd ground harder and felt him starting to swell.  03 dug his fingers into his chest.

Nipping at his pulse, Fahd ran his fingers down 03’s throat.  They slithered down 03’s heaving chest to his clenching fingers.  He pried them up one at a time, holding each trembling digit for a second or two before moving on to the next.  When he had one hand in his own, Fahd slipped a knee between 03’s shaking thighs.  03 sucked in a quiet breath.  His grip on Fahd’s shirt loosened.  Fahd swept over the back of his hand with his thumb before rolling them over.

Fahd held 03 beneath him with gentle pressure, stroking the bony wrists he held above 03’s head and kneading his erection with his knee.  His hand slid out from beneath 03’s back.  Fahd’s fingertips drifted up his stomach, circling each small button on his dress shirt.  03 tugged his left hand, then his right.  He shifted his hips and pressed his thighs against Fahd’s knee uselessly before looking up at Fahd.  Beneath the lidded eyes and long lashes, Fahd saw a sliver of green, grayer than usual, a single crack of washed-out color in the pupil-dominated eye. 

Fahd ground the wrist bones against each other.  03 flinched.  The iris darkened a touch.  The pupil retracted some.

A touch of pain—a pinch here, a bite there, grinding smaller bones, twisting sensitive flesh—kept 03 from retreating too far into his head as Fahd pushed aside his dress shirt and worked the corset off 03’s limp body.  Fahd released his hands, dragging his fingers hard down his arms to his shoulders.  03’s hands stayed above his head.  His fingers twitched on occasion.  03’s pupils swelled when Fahd fingered the small breasts.  They retreated to pinpricks when Fahd twisted his flagging erection. 

03 finally hissed, shifting his hips.  He twisted when Fahd forced his pant-tangled ankles up.  Fahd pushed two fingers inside him. 

03’s hands lunged, wrapping around and pulling at Fahd’s wrist.  Fahd twisted the pants, bringing the ankles closer together and pushing them towards his head.  03’s fingers dug into his joint.  Fahd curled his thrusting fingers, the tips brushing 03’s prostate.  The boy let out a breathy gasp.  His hands scrabbled at Fahd’s arm.

Fahd teased the sensitive bundle of nerves with twists and scratches.  03 squirmed beneath him, swearing in breathy pants.  Fahd rubbed hard.  03’ships jerked.  His hands slipped from Fahd’s arm, falling down beside his head again.  Smirking, Fahd slid his hand down one of 03’s slender legs.  They sagged a bit without Fahd’s support. 

He stroked 03’s hip before snaking his fingers between the tense, quivering thighs.  The flesh he grabbed was hot.  Fahd thumbed the swollen, moist head.  03 moaned. 

Fahd continued to stroke him as he eased his fingers from the tight passage.  03 let out a whining groan.  He shook his head once.  Fahd shifted closer.  He made quick work on his zipper and leaned against 03’s legs.  The trembling limbs dipped closer to 03’s chest.  Soon, 03 would be able to grip the pillow with his toes. 

03 fisted the bedding on other side of his head.  He let out a high-pitched, wheezing sound as his lungs tried to get air in the contorted position.  A flush ran from his cheeks down to his shoulders, painting the bite marks on his slender, working throat a deep red.  03’s tongue swept over his lips before he glared at Fahd with utter loathing.

Fahd pushed into the clenching hole, thrusting straight for that small knot of pleasure.  03’s glare collapsed.  Fahd grit his teeth as 03 tightened around him like a vice. 

Neither of them lasted particularly long.

In the afterglow, after Fahd had come down from the sexual high, and after he had shifted 03’s passed out body into a more comfortable position, Fahd stretched out beside him.  He traced 03’s lax features and enjoyed the weight of him on his arm.  Then, as Fahd settled his other arm over 03’s shoulders and 03 shifted closer, something clicked.

Fahd glanced down at the boy burrowed against his chest.  03’s had his arms around his own waist again, but Fahd’s warmth and presence kept the grip relaxed.  Fahd stroked the prominent spine.  03 muttered and moved his head against Fahd in a way that could only be described as nuzzling. 

_“You weren’t there.”_

“I’m here now,” he murmured into 03’s hair.  Fahd tightened his grip, fingers threading into his hair and pressing him against his chest.  “You can sleep, for now.  I don’t have to leave.”  He pressed his lips to the top of his head.  “And pretty soon, I might not have to leave at all.”

If 03 needed him so desperately, then it was probably time finish one, or two, or four, things.  Fahd might be able to get them done within the week.  His grip around the boy tightened.

03 whined and craned his head away to breathe.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of hate this chapter. Which is sad.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Quatre stumbles into trouble, and Trowa makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: violence, swearing

 

Quatre was having, by far, one of the worst days of his life.  While not nearly as terrible as when he had been addled and nearly blow up a colony, it was much worse than, say, when he had gone through an entire day of meetings wearing two different shoes.  What had started so promising—first an unusual but oh-so-appreciated extra hour of sleep and then Heero's utilitarian-but-still-delicious breakfast—had quickly degenerated into a political staffer's personal hell.

Less than a block from the office, a pothole had thrown coffee all over the last of Quatre's clean, white dress shirts (thankfully, he kept a spare shirt at the office; it didn’t clash too terribly).  His presentation had disappeared, from his password-protected laptop no less, and only years-worth of improvisation experience had stopped him from making a fool of himself during the most important presentation in his short career.  Not an hour after that, Relena had (once again) politely laughed off his concerns that Stevens—who had the appropriate IT skills and the abnormally-large chip on his shoulder—may be attempting to sabotage him.  And then, in the same breath, she had had the audacity to name Quatre the bearer of her condolences to Fahd Kader. 

And now he was getting a speeding ticket.  Quatre swore with such color and vehemence that, had they been there, Heero and Trowa probably would have blinked in shock and Duo would have fallen over laughing.

Quatre had noticed the unmarked police car, of course.  It had pulled out of an empty parking lot just after Quatre had gone through the last green light before the highway.  Its lights had been off, though, so he mostly ignored it as it merged onto the high about a dozen car-lengths behind him.  Quatre must have gone a mile with it inching closer before he really noticed.  Then it was there: two car-lengths behind instead of seven, imbedded red-and-blue LEDs flashing from the windshield, headlights, and grill.

The posted speed of this stretch of highway was 60.  Quatre glanced down at his dashboard.  10 miles-per-hour wasn't _that_ much of difference.

The squad car disagreed.  It gave two electronics beeps before letting out a short burst of siren.  Swearing under his breath, Quatre pulled off onto the shoulder.  The squad car followed.  It stopped about twenty feet behind him: close enough for the patrol car's high beams to brighten the fake leather interior of Quatre's sedan.   Quatre squinted at the rear view mirror.  Through the glare, he saw one large shadow in the driver's seat.  After watching him for about thirty seconds, the officer shifted.

Quatre, blinking away painful spots, glanced into his side mirror.  The bend in the road half a mile behind them steadily began to glow.  This highway  _was_  known for speeders and not just a few hit-and-runs.   _Safety first._

The glow brightened into the heavy cab of an eighteen-wheeler.  It crawled around the bend at posted speed, oblivious to the line of cars behind it.  Only one or two managed to escape the snail's-paced line.  They merged just ahead of the top-heavy pickup trucks and SUVs that were barreling down the left lanes.  Except for the slow turn of his head after a SUV easily pushing ninety, the officer behind him ignored them. 

Quatre would get the single-minded cop, wouldn't he?  And because sixty was more than enough to kill a man, Quatre had to wait until the truck and its wake crawled past.  He had to watch as other cars push triple-digits, their tires lifting as they merged with their badly-centered bodies, and wonder how much reasonable speeding was going to cost him.

Glaring at the officer, Quatre snatched his briefcase from the passenger seat.  Fine.  He was getting a ticket; he wasn't going to torture himself waiting for it.  Quatre had a stack of papers to go through before Monday morning, on top of his usual prep work.  If he wanted at least Sunday night to himself, he needed to make the best use of his time, including this.  He tugged the work out, thumbing through the pages for a rough count before propping the pile up on the steering wheel.  Relena's itinerary for Quatre's Tuesday meeting with Kader was on top.  _Of course._  

Quatre knew he was the most logical choice as bearer of Relena's condolences. Death in the political world was tricky, demanding just the right balance of compassion, tact, and strength: a balance that Quatre could achieve the easiest without looking weak or condescending.  He was, after all, empathetic.  He could read, and, if he was very careful, even manipulate (he preferred to call it “nudging”), emotions.  He could probably prevent most of the misunderstandings and miscommunications that had plagued every prior meeting Relena’s office had had with the man. 

Quatre was also well-schooled in most Middle Eastern cultures and their etiquette.  There would be no faux pas with him carrying her sentiments—something some of Relena's more "experienced" advisors couldn’t claim.  Most importantly, however, Quatre was the nearest to him in age.  Tactful sympathy would be much less emotionally charged or condescending coming from him than it would if it came from a staffer closer to Kader's father's age.

And Relena wanted to be sympathetic.  She wanted to be supportive in what she saw as the hardest part of life.  Her father's murder  _still_  pained her on occasion, so she wanted to ease Kader’s burden of grief as much as possible, as professionally as possible.  It was very noble and astoundingly naïve.

Saif Kader's strained relationship with his second-born had been no secret.  In public, the two had shared a coldness between them that was surprising even for Middle Eastern aristocracy.  But strain could be eased, coldness could be tempered, with death.  Grief could still occur.  According to Quatre's sources, however—which, were far more efficient than Relena’s due to their necessarily morally-ambiguous nature—there would be no grief.  The animosity between them was too thick for that.

Before his illness, Saif had been known for publically, and in no way subtly, criticizing his son: criticisms that Kader took with the grace and tongue-in-cheek appreciation expected of an heir.  The two did not meet in private.  Had not for years, according to former house staff.  Kader occupied a wing at the opposite end of the main house when he was there; there was less broken furniture and blood stains that way. 

All of Quatre's sources assured him that Saif had always been a violent man; as a teenager, he had escaped manslaughter charges through family connections, and the last one only narrowly.  An early marriage to the particularly calm and demure daughter of an oil tycoon had mellowed his temper somewhat.  The announcement of their first born had actually made a marked improvement.  Unfortunately, Ilham Kader had been born with Vrolik Syndrome.  The severity of the case almost killed him at birth, the pressures breaking his legs and fracturing several ribs.  It was a miracle he survived.

But he did.  Saif's money and influence saw to that.  Ilham was provided with the best medical care that money could buy, because he had to survive.  Complications surrounding his birth had made a second child practically impossible; complications with the family of his wife made a mistress, or a second wife, completely impossible.  Saif needed an heir, and a cripple was better than none at all. 

That necessity had protected him for nearly ten years.

Then the impossible happened: Saif’s subdued and frail wife had another son.  A healthy one.  Everything shifted.  It was not immediate, of course—Saif couldn't rid himself of the spare until he was sure of the heir—but over the next several years, Ilham was moved further and further away from attention.  He was moved further and further from the center of the house.  The rate of treatments decreased; the medical staff shrank.  Apart from an occasional formal appearance, where he stood with state-of-the-art braces and crutches, Ilham practically disappeared from the public eye. 

And then he literally did.

The coroner declared it an accident, an inevitable one given Ilham's unstable bone structure.  No one asked why Ilham was alone at the top of the stairs in the middle of the night.  No one asked why he was near the west wing of the house (his younger brother’s and father’s wing), even though he was not prone to insomnia or wandering.  But no one had asked how the graceful wife had managed such a fall so as to hang herself with a curtain sash, either.  A fall down the stairs was at least believable.

Kader had been devastated.

He had been seven at the time, too young to understand the implications of an ousted first-born or the necessity of political murder.  Saif should have waited until he was older, until the affection for his older brother had died with the single-minded selfishness of adolescence.  But he didn't and from the close of the small, exceptionally private funeral, Kader had changed.  He saw his brother's death as a failing on his father's part.  All the money and effort he poured into Kader and he couldn't save his brother from a simple fall down the stairs?  One guard would have been more than enough.  That failing strained their relationship.  As Kader grew, and undoubtedly discovered for himself the truth, the strain turned to tension, which then turned to hate.

It was possible that Kader had actually orchestrated his father's illness.  He had the connections and the motive.  More than one politician had suggested it, in the quiet but still public forums politics had.  But Kader was too charming, too disarming, to suggest something so nefarious.  He met every report of deterioration with just the right amount of concern.   And luckily for him, every accuser eventually met "small problems" that took their attention away from the accusations; the last one simply disappeared. 

Kader was patient, much more patient than Saif himself.  He had waited until the old man's weakness resolved itself, until there was no way to prove absolutely that the failing of Saif's immune system was anything but natural.  He had waited until the body was already compromised before allowing lethal allergens to slip under the eyes of his father's guards. 

If the rumors were true, of course.  Quatre thought they were.  The head of Saif's medical staff had meetings frequent meetings with Kader.  He had been Ilham's main physician, and he had purchased a new house for his family shortly after Saif lost consciousness the first time.  But, like everything else, that was coincidental and hardly proof 

There would be no grief on Tuesday; any tears Quatre saw when he bore Relena's sincerest condolences would be tears of joy.  Quatre was surprised Kader hadn't been caught dancing on his father's grave yet.

Quatre was not going through the paperwork as fast as he would have liked.  Even after shuffling the itinerary to the back of pile, he was distracted.  He had so much information, hearsay or not; how much of it would be relevant?  The Preventers had hit something of a wall in their newest investigation.  What if he funneled the information to Heero?  Considering his sources, though, much of it was probably illegal.  To see Fahd Kader get released on a technicality, knowing he had been partially responsible for it.  It wasn't worth it.  Except the Preventers were not always bound to the same rules as local law enforcement.  And when they were, they had certain ways of exploiting little-known loopholes.  Questionable legality was a small matter, really.  

He had been staring at the same introductory paragraph for a while, sorting his all of information into legal and questionable, when he heard a car door slam.  Quatre blinked and looked at the rearview mirror.  The officer, dressed in standard blues, was walking towards his car with a clipboard and a flashlight.   _About time._ Quatre tossed the papers onto his briefcase. 

Somewhere near the trunk of the car, the officer flipped his flashlight on.  So when he arrived at the driver's window, the light beamed into Quatre's face.  Full in the face.  From just below the officer’s ribs. 

The strategist in him froze.  A bit of random data suddenly surfaced from the bottomless wealth of information he had.  The dormant pilot in him latched onto it.

_"Local law enforcement training dictates that when approaching a suspect at night, every officer must bear their flashlight at shoulder-height.  Reasons for this are numerous: differentiation between officer and civilian, appropriate defense mechanism should the suspect prove to be violent, etc.  If approached by an ‘officer’ who does not—"_

Quatre let the information go and stared at the head of the flashlight for a second.  The second expanded, giving him time to absorb the details the moment.  The darkness of this stretch of highway.  The silence that had ruled for over five minutes now, since the last car had sped away.  The time: 7:23, not too long after rush hour.  Cars would still come by but at a trickle.  Plenty of time for the would-be cop.

Quatre's heart pounded in his ears.  If he didn’t play the next two to three minutes perfectly, the trap he had stumbled into would cost him something.  Most likely, his life.

"Is there a problem, officer," Quatre asked, voice carefully neutral, a small uncomfortable smile on his lips.  Appropriate for one who wanted to pretend they had done nothing wrong.

"License and registration, if you please." 

Odd phrasing.  More submissive than the standard "please," granting the listener higher authority than the speaker and therefore utterly inappropriate from a police officer.  This man was used to serving someone who demanded observance of a rigid hierarchy. 

"Of course," Quatre answered.

His registration was in the glove box.  On top of the pile of paperwork that hid the box of bullets, thankfully.  His license was in his wallet, which was in his briefcase.  Quatre let his nervousness develop into a twitch.  It knocked his briefcase to the floor in an entirely believable fumbling.  Quatre apologized hurriedly, unbuckling his seat belt and leaning over the hand brake.

There was no short, horrifying pain of a bullet piercing the back of his skull.  The would-be cop was under strict orders, then.

Quatre had left the briefcase open, so most of its contents spilled out when it fell.  Coupled with the mess from the stack of papers, Quatre had a believable pile "burying" his wallet.   Still, he didn't linger longer than he needed to.  While shuffling papers from one side to the other, he snuck a hand under the passenger seat and flicked the snap holding the holster closed.

He hadn't wanted the gun.  In Quatre's mind, the time to carry a loaded firearm at all times ended with the war.  When Heero had found out he was going to work in politics, however, he had asked Quatre get one.  Relena was a pacifist; most politicians were not, and it was astonishingly easy to hire a decent hit man.  Quatre had refused.  Heero had reluctantly accepted the decision after a thorough detailing of Relena's security staff.

When Quatre became an unofficial Preventer informant, Heero didn't ask.  He insisted.  He went so far as to develop and install a special harness for Quatre’s car: to keep the gun from accidentally firing if there was a car accident or something.  Knowing Heero wouldn’t relent, and not wanting to seem unappreciative of his concern, Quatre had begrudgingly accepted the alterations.  But he had always thought that the likelihood of himself getting into any sort of trouble that needed bullets was next to zero. 

_I'm lucky Heero's paranoid._

"Sorry about that," Quatre said, handing the would-be cop his documents with a sheepish smile.  He passed them with his right hand, which was both awkward and suspicious.  He kept his voice high, however, and fumbled over his words.  Nervous, protective, normal.  The would-be cop took his documents without comment.  He didn't appear to notice Quatre's left hand sliding to the door handle.

"Going a little fast, weren't you Mr. Winner?"

"I...Yeah, I guess I was.  It was, it was just such a long day and I just wanted to get home—"

"Speed limits exist for a reason, Mr. Winner."

"Yes, of course.  It won't happen again, officer."

The would-be officer glanced at him as he clipped the license to the clipboard.  "No, Mr. Winner.  I imagine it won't."

In the time that it took him to write the ticket, Quatre had discreetly switched his left hand for his right and unlatched the door with the softest and quietest of movements.  The would-be cop didn't appear to notice.  He ripped the ticket from the pad, folded it around Quatre's documents, and handed them back.  Quatre reached out with his left hand.

The strategist in him expected to be grabbed.  A grab, followed by a hard pull into the door, was the simplest and most effective.  It would surprise Quatre and give the would-be cop enough time to grab the back of his head and slam it into the steering wheel or door; or else pull out his gun, cock it, and fire point-blank. 

Quatre was not disappointed.  The would-be cop dropped the license and lunged at Quatre's wrist.  He threw the clipboard as he did, freeing his hand for either Quatre’s head or his gun.  Since he was expecting it, though, Quatre twisted out of the grab.  The move gave him a two-second window of surprise.  He didn't waste it.  He shoved at the driver's door twice, both hands slamming the hard metal into the man's knees and then his head. 

Bleeding, the would-be cop snarled in garbled Farsi.  He fumbled with his pistol.  Quatre twisted in the driver's seat, fell back across the hand brake, and grabbed the gun.  He kicked the door once.  The would-be cop jumped back.  The driver's window framed his shoulders. 

Quatre emptied the chamber in his head. 

His assailant's ravaged face fell back in a less than graceful arc.  He swayed, staggered back a step, and then dropped below the window.  Quatre didn't hear the body hit the asphalt.  He didn't hear his pulse in his ears or his heart pounding against his ribs.  All he heard was a high ringing.  A car was much too small for firing half a dozen bullets. 

The likelihood of surviving not one but six bullets to the head was essentially zero.  Quatre still held the gun, poised to fire.  The threat of a seventh bullet should be enough.  As the seconds ticked on, the ringing dimmed.  Soon he realized that the high hissing sound punctuating the singing pulses of his wounded hearing was his breath.  Quatre fought against his gasping lungs, forcing them to take longer pulls of air.  He gagged twice before getting his breathing back to normal.  As he took in more oxygen, his hands stopped shaking.  The frightened chinking of a trembling gun that he had just started to notice stopped. 

It was then that Quatre felt a light weight on his legs.  Several light weights, like pinpoints on his shins and thighs.   _Blood stains._   Quatre suddenly smelled gunpowder and the heavy metallic tang of blood. 

Quatre shifted the full weight of the gun into his right hand.  The barrel trembled only a little as he fished his cell phone out of his coat. 

It rang five times before connecting. "Yuy."

_He's busy.  He always checks the ID.  He's busy.  I'm interrupting some precious prep for his mission._

"I shot someone in the head."

Anyone else would have answered the declaration with hysteria.  And while panicked questions about his health and demands for explanations  _could_  be comforting, more likely they would shatter the already tenuous hold Quatre had on his emotions.  He needed that hold, and he needed time.  Question would waste both. 

Heero answered him with thirty-six seconds of silence.  He wasn't shocked.  Heero refused to be shocked, because shock was dangerous.   It implied disbelief, which led to panic, which led to mistakes.  Besides, it wasn’t actually shocking.  Heero knew Quatre was capable of killing.  He knew—had seen—Quatre had killed before.  Of course, that had been in the war.  They weren't at war, so he shouldn't have to kill now. 

But that was not important right now.  It would be important later.  Much later, after Heero had finished processing a simple but gruesome fact and the most effective and efficient course of action he decided on with had been acted upon to the letter.

"Are you hurt," Heero asked finally.

"No."

"Where are you?"

"East-bound on route twenty-eight," Quatre said.  He lifted himself slowly, just high enough to read a mile marker through the windshield.  About one hundred feet before mile-marker nine."

"How many shots?"

"Six."

"Do you have any bullets left?"

"There's a box in the glove box.  It's unopened."

"Open it and reload."

"Heero."

"It's just a precaution, you know that," Heero said.  Quatre heard a creak in the background.  Heero must have been at his desk.  "I'll talk to Une."

"Heero."

"We'll call it in—"

"It was a cop."

Heero's silence lasted only ten seconds.  "Shit."

"I'm sorry, Heero.  I don't know if he was dirty, or if it was just some guy who stole a uniform and an unmarked car—"

"Where's the gun?"

"In my hand."

"Put it down.  On the passenger seat.  Is your window up?"

"No."

"Put it up."

Quatre sat up carefully.  He considered picking up his briefcase before finally setting the gun on the seat.  Shifting around, Quatre closed the driver's door, forcing himself to ignore the asphalt and the high beam-illuminated pool of blood.  The side mirror, however, was angled just right to reflect a black shoe in the bottom corner, and two pale points of light half a mile behind him.

"Heero.  Cars."

"Put the window up, Quatre."

Quatre turned the car on, holding the ignition key just a little too long.  The grind of the starter made him jump.

"Do not talk to anyone,” Heero ordered, the words coming out in a mild pant.  "No matter what happens, do not talk to anyone.  Une has you in the books as an informant.  They can't touch you."

The Preventers already had a strained relationship with local law enforcement and the justice system.  The organization's "harboring of a cop-killer" was going to completely destroy it.

"I'm sorry, Heero.  I'm so sorry.  I—"

"How's your battery?"

Quatre blinked.  "What?"

"Your battery.  Your cell phone battery."

"It, it's fine.  I had some work to do at my desk so I charged it before I left."

"Good.  You can talk to Duo."

"Talk to…what?"

But Heero was not listening.  He was moving, his long stride a series of soft whooshes and thuds over the phone.  Quatre heard him bark at Duo, heard Duo bark back.  No one bothered to cover the mouth piece. 

“Talk to him.” 

“What?” 

“Talk to him.  Now.” 

“What are you—”

“Talk to him.  Talk about anything, just don’t ask what’s wrong.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone.  Then someone was breathing into the phone.  It was Heero.

"Do not talk to anyone.  No matter what happens, talk to Duo.  Only talk to Duo.  You talk about whatever you want, just not this.  You cannot talk about this.  We can't take a statement over the phone.  Understand?"

The first of a small group of cars rushed past.  It didn't slow.  The second one did.  The third one pulled off to the side just ahead of him.  So did the fourth.  People got out.  They ran a few feet toward him before stumbling to a stop.  Someone started fumbling with their pocket. 

Quatre covered his face with his hand.

"Do you understand, Quatre?"

"Yes."

"Quatre," Heero said, voice softening for the first time since he picked up the phone.  Quatre felt, through the phone and miles and miles of phone lines and electricity bouncing from satellites, concern and fear.  The bitter-sweetness of Heero’s care nearly choked him .  "Sit tight.  We're coming."

*-----*-----*

"Finished," Catherine said, sitting back on her heels and wiping her forehead.  She watched Trowa carry the last crate before looking from the cardboard boxes she had packed and stacked to the crates he had packed and stacked to the tent they had spent most of the day working in.

"Well, the little stuff anyway."

Packing up the circus was always a three-day job.  At least.  Trowa had missed day one when, aside from personal belongings, everything that wasn't nailed down or otherwise fastened in the temp-solid housing had to be packed.  And he would miss day three, when the bleachers, rings, and tents would be dismantled and the largest of remaining items from day two—like the animal cages—would be loaded onto transport trucks.

Trowa was not particularly upset about missing days one and three.  He and Catherine could never pack up the trailer without arguing, either because she had no sense of organization or because he could not fold clothes for optimal space-saving and wrinkle-prevention.  And he somehow always managed to get surrounded by inept people when it came to the tents.   Not having to endure her glaring after he shot through her lack of logic, and not having to watch his head for falling coils of rope or swinging beams, was a nice change.

"The trucks are coming tomorrow," Trowa asked as he pushed the last crate into place.

"Four A.M.  My favorite time.  I always love getting up at dawn to move a hundred boxes."

Trowa decided not to mention that dawn was actually somewhere around six. 

"When's the flight?"

"We have to be at the port by seven-thirty tomorrow night, so after that."

Even if he were inclined to (and he wasn’t), Trowa wouldn’t need to ask Catherine where the circus was headed.  He had run into the ringmaster that morning when he was pushing his bike across the crate-littered grounds.  By no means a sentimental man, he gave Trowa an unusually gruff greeting.  It took a single question to figure out exactly what pinched the ringmaster's face more so than usual today.

The circus was headed for another colony.  The animals weren’t fond of shuttles and were even less fond of the sedatives they got before space travel.

The colonies were a logical choice.  Most of the colonists missed some of the traditions and cultures of Earth.  So there was good money and publicity to be had for a performing group willing to endure the frustrations of space travel.  Which the circus was.  They always spent at least a few months on each one. 

It was the first colony-tour Trowa wasn’t present for.  He had already missed half of it.  He wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about that.

Catherine stood and stretched, grimacing as her back popped. "I'm starving, I'm stiff, and I stink of cardboard and tape.  I get dibs on the shower."

Trowa, who had been itching for the last hour or two from the layer of sweat under his shirt, disagreed.

"Because I’m also not starving, stiff, and smelling like metal crates _and_ the cardboard boxes _you_ couldn't lift."

"My house, my bathroom."

"I’m faster than you."

"I locked the door this time."

"What happened to being a good host," Trowa asked, arms crossed over his chest.

Catherine snorted playfully. "Hostess-ing rules do not apply on moving day."

Trowa was aware that this was mostly likely the last time for a long time that Catherine would get to engage in the playful, argumentative banter she enjoyed.  So he indulged her, resisting a bit more, and with much more effort for wittiness, before giving in.  It made their walk back to the uncomfortably empty trailer a bit more bearable.

Besides, he was used to being uncomfortable.  Catherine was not.  And a little salt was much better than roasting or freezing in a cockpit or having his ribs ache with every breath. 

Everything apart from the table and chairs had been packed.  Catherine grabbed her over-stuffed duffle bag from the table and dragged it to the bathroom.  As he waited for his turn, Trowa busied himself with finding the disposable plates and utensils that were provided for the troupe during moving days and then spooning out rations from the leftovers in the fridge.  Catherine had just enough saved for a small dinner and lunch for two.  Trowa dug a sandwich out of his bag before cutting his portion in half.

Catherine noticed the size difference almost immediately.  But Trowa had put his sandwich right next to his plate, so she couldn't do much more than pout.

"Shower's yours,” she said.  “There should still be hot water.  Just bring the shampoo and soap out when you're done so I can pack them again."

"Not showering before the flight?"

"I will if I'm lucky, but last time we weren't."  

Trowa certainly hoped they were.  Commercial shuttles were bad enough without other passengers glaring at you because you, unfortunately, reeked.

Knowing she wouldn't, Trowa didn't bother to tell her to start without him.  He would just have to take a fast shower.  He set his much-lighter duffle on the toilet seat and wriggled out of his work clothes.  Trowa turned the shirts over in his hands, thumbing an old pull he had worsened today with getting it caught on a crate.  The old turtleneck and plain tee were both very close to becoming useless as actual clothes.  They still had enough integrity to make good rags, though, and half-decent bandages in a pinch.  He'd cut them up for scraps later.

Luckily, his work jeans were still in decent shape.  When they weren't, he planned to make them into cutoffs.  Otherwise, he was stuck with useless cloth (because jeans did not make good rags or bandages) that had to be dumped. 

Trowa showered enough to feel clean and a little more relaxed.  And hungry.   Hungry enough to leave his hair gel and corset in the bathroom until after dinner.   If Catherine noticed—how could she not notice his hair—she thankfully didn't say anything. 

They ate cold chicken and vegetables in silence, Catherine grimacing occasionally.  Trowa was quite fine with cold vegetables, even previously microwavable ones.  Plus, he had his peanut butter sandwich to wash away any unpleasant tastes.  Catherine only had some water and the empty space where the microwave used to be to frown at.

Trowa finished before her, which was not unusual, and took his plate and utensils to the trash bag in the corner without a word, which was also not unusual.  Catherine watched him, though, with a pursed, thoughtful expression.  Which wasn't that unusual either.  What was unusual was that Catherine had watched him for most of the day with that same expression.  It was uncomfortable, to say the least.

"It's a shame you can't stay tonight," she said when he sat back down.

Fahd had told him he could; it was the last night Trowa would be able to spend with her for a while.  He  _should_ spend it with her and soak up some of her confidence and concern and care.  He would need it eventually, and letters and phone calls just weren’t the same.  But Trowa had only just started to have slightly normal sleeping habits again.  He needed another two weeks, at least, to even out.  Besides, he had woken up from nightmares three times this week, twice on nights when he had been home.  He only managed to stifle the screaming once.  He didn’t want to risk having to explain his night terrors to her.

"I really don't think Wufei wants to trust Duo with his water heater."

"It's a water heater."

"And Duo is very good at making things explode."

"As if you aren't."                                           

"But when I do it, it's on purpose."

Catherine, who had lost a very nice blender to Duo's luck with household appliances, nodded.  "Good point."

They lapsed into silence, which turned somewhat awkward when Catherine resumed her staring. 

"Is there a reason you're staring,” Trowa asked finally.

"I'm not staring."

"You've been staring at me all day."

"Have not."  Trowa, leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms, arched an eyebrow. "Alright fine, I have, but there's something different about you and I'm trying to figure it out."

"If you are thinking I've lost weight again, you're right.  I was sick, and no, it wasn't serious.  But a weekend without being able to eat can do that."

He wasn’t going to mention the pills.  Ever.

"I've had stomach viruses, too, smart-ass.  And that's not it.  Something's just...different.  About you, you know what I mean?"

"No."

"You are not helpful." Catherine sighed.  "I don't know.  Something's different.  The way you move, the way you stand, even the glare you're giving me now.  It’s different.  You’re different, like something's changed."

Trowa stiffened.  He had forgotten just how perceptive Catherine was when it came to him.

"Nothing's changed."

"Is it something at work?"

"Catherine."

"A promotion?"

He sighed. "No."

"A demotion then?  What did you do?"

"I didn’t do anything."

"Did someone move out?  Did someone move in?"

"Catherine, I don't know what you're looking for, but I promise, there nothing different."

"Are you dating?”

Dating implied two people who were mutual attracted to one another, enjoyed each other's company, and went out on either utterly mundane or irritatingly sentimental excursions simply because they could.  For whatever reason, yes, Fahd was sexually attracted him—which made Trowa shudder—and he had to begrudgingly admit that Fahd was attractive him—which made Trowa shudder more—but as of yet, Trowa hadn't gone much further than the front door with Fahd, and was inclined to keep it that way.  There was nothing mundane or sentimental about anything they did; Fahd was incapable of limiting his perversity.  He was incapable of controlling himself.  And Trowa didn’t enjoy Fahd's company; he simply needed it and had reached the point where he was more than willing to endure it. 

They were  _not_  dating.

Unfortunately, Trowa took a little too long to reach that conclusion.  Catherine jumped on the hesitation immediately.

"Oh my god," she gasped behind her hands.  Trowa had to head her off, quickly.

"No."

"Since when?"

"Since never."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"We're not dating."

"But you are seeing someone."

Tt was technically true, so Trowa couldn't do much except grit his teeth.  Catherine reached over and smacked his shoulder.

"Sneaky bastard!  I'm your sister, you're supposed to tell me these things."

"Hardly." Catherine smacked him again, harder this time.  "I don't have to tell you everything.  You know that I don't.  Besides, it's, it’s complicated."

"Everyone says that."

"Everyone" was not sleeping with a known terrorist for the known reason of sleep deprivation, and several unknown, unwanted reasons.

"I wouldn't know, but it is.  And no, I’m not explaining it."

"The hell you aren’t.  I didn't get to meet the guy before leaving, thanks to you, so I want details and I want them now."

Trowa arched an eyebrow.  "You expect me to tell you everything because I didn't let you meet?"

"Exactly."

"And my privacy means nothing?"

"Not right now it doesn't.  You have three hours before you absolutely have to leave, so I suggest you start talking."

Trowa didn’t know enough about relationships or dating  to come up suitable lies on the spot.  Which meant that he'd have to tell the truth.  In her current mood, Catherine would not be deterred by anything.  Except he couldn't tell her the truth.  Catherine wouldn’t accept it well, and all of the responses Trowa imagined her making were uncomfortable at best and disastrous at worst.  He had to say something, though, and soon.  She was leaning forward with a hard, disturbing focus.  She drummed her fingers on the table.  If he waited any longer, she would start asking questions.

And when it came to her interrogations, Trowa was pretty much incapable of not tripping himself. 

Trowa was trying to spin convincing half-truths as fast he could when the phone rang.  Catherine, apart from a short glance, completely ignored it.  The phone rang six times before cutting out; the answering machine, which was not wall mounted, had already been packed.  In the short silence, Catherine opened her mouth.  The phone rang again.  She stared at it a little longer.

The third time she got up.  "Don't think you're off the hook," she said as she crossed to the phone.  But if it was a moderately-serious emergency, preferably something transport-related, he might be.  With his luck, though, it was probably a salesman.

Catherine watched him as she picked it up. "Hello?" Not her typical light-hearted greeting but still convincingly nonchalant.  Her forehead suddenly creased.  "Nice to hear from you too.  I'm fine, by the way, thanks.  How are you?"

Trowa could only think of one person Catherine would use  _that_  tone with.  But Thomas, now without his crutches, could easily walk over the snowless grounds from his trailer if he really wanted to bother them.

Catherine pursed her lips.  "Well yeah.  We're moving out, he came by to help—" Trowa tilted his head.  Someone looking for him?  And someone with the kind of phone etiquette Catherine hated?  "Yes, he's finishing dinner—" Catherine sneered and put her hand on her hip.  "Not with that attitude you're not."

Trowa knew a few people who could be looking for him  _and_ know Catherine's unlisted number.  Three of them were busy: Heero and Duo were pulling another three-day, mission-centered shift, which meant that phone calls were heavily restricted; and Quatre never left work before seven on a Saturday.  That left Trowa with one more choice.  Unlisted numbers weren't difficult to find, especially if you had the resources Fahd did.  But if he had had the audacity to call her—

 "Fine, fine.  Trowa, it's for you." she hissed, not bothering to cover the mouthpiece.  "It's your asshole of a roommate."

Trowa felt marginally better.  The only reason they’d call was for an emergency.  And their emergencies tended to be rather disastrous.  Trowa took the phone from her before she decided to throw it at him.

"Yes?"

"Your phone is neither off nor dead," Heero growled.  "So is there a reason why you’re not answering it?"

"I didn't know you were calling."

"It vibrates like a sex toy and you're telling me you didn't feel it?"

Trowa arched an eyebrow; he couldn't remember the last time Heero was this pissed.  He did remember, however, how little he liked it.  "I've been moving crates all day.  Heavy, metal crates.  Accidents happen, so I left it in the trailer."

"Were you moving shit an hour ago?"

"No."

"Then you should have heard the damn phone."

Trowa grit his teeth. "Excuse me for taking a shower."

"Since when do you take hour-long showers?"

"A shower and dinner.  I’m allowed to eat," he spat.  "If all you're planning to do with this is scold me, then good night.  You can talk to me when I get home.  Tomorrow."

"Don't be a smartass, Trowa."

“Then tell me what’s so goddamned important—”

"Quatre was attacked."

For some reason, Trowa couldn't make the sentence work in his head.   It spun endlessly, senselessly in his head, like gibberish.  He felt a distant pain. 

Warmth suddenly cupped his hand.  Trowa twitched, looking down at the hand settled over his.  Trowa barely registered that he was gripping the counter hard enough to bruise his palm.  Catherine ran her thumb over his tense, white knuckles.  There was concern on her face when she tilted her head to look at him.  Trowa took a long, shaking breath and relaxed his grip. 

"When,” he asked quietly.

"About forty-five minutes ago on route twenty-eight.  We're pulling up to the site now."

"Is he hurt?"

"He said no, and there  _is_  a very dead cop next to his car."

"A cop?"

"Une called them before we left.  Every precinct in a thirty-mile radius."

Which might not mean anything.  Cops were very territorial when it came to jurisdictions.  And even more so when cop-killers were involved.

"And?"

"And there are half a dozen squad cars and a dozen pissed-off cops drawing everyone's attention.  It's a traffic nightmare.  But Quatre's still in the car."

"Is he alright?"

"Duo's been talking to him.  He tells him to calm down twice roughly every six minutes."

Which was not bad for an empath with a dead body and twelve angry cops around him. 

"We're getting out now,” Heero said.

"What's next?"

"Une's bringing him in.  He's an informant, but I'm expecting fifteen minutes of arguing with the cops before Quatre gets out of the car.  Hour and a half minimal before we're back at headquarters."

"I'll be there."

The silence Heero answered him with was unusual.  Heavy and tinged with something too much like surprise.  When he answered, though, his voice was even apart from a small lift at the end of a word or two that indicated appreciation.      

"We'll see you there."

Trowa hung up the phone.  He squeezed Catherine's hand gently before hurrying to the bathroom.

"What happened,” she asked.

"Quatre.  I need to leave."

"Is he alright?"

"He’s not hurt."

"But is he alright?"

Trowa paused before stuffing his filthy work clothes into the duffle bag.  "I don't know.  Heero and Duo are with him now."

"What happened?"

"Catherine," he said, "It's going to take me almost two hours to get there.  And that's if I speed and don't stop for gas."  He threw the hair gel and the corset on top and yanked the zipper closed.  "I have to go." 

Catherine stared at the duffle bag for a moment before looking at him.  "Call me?"

"I will."

Between throwing on his jacket and running out the door, Trowa paused and let Catherine hug him as hard as she wanted.  He felt, for the first time in years, the scratch of wool against his breasts as she held him close.  Trowa wrapped his arms about her back and squeezed back. 

The highway was mostly deserted, and not known for speeders, so there were no cops to flag him down as he pushed triple digits.     Unfortunately, Trowa only had half a tank of gas, and over-a-hundred was not an efficient speed.  He pulled off into a gas station about half way, where he bounced minutely on the balls of his feet while the single attendant meandered between tanks and pumps and register.   Even with the fifteen minute delay, Trowa arrived at the headquarters first.  Trowa waited in the empty space next to Heero and Duo’s.

Exactly twenty-three minutes after he arrived, three cars pulled into the garage.  Trowa recognized only one.  Heero didn't look surprised to see Trowa at his door.  He nodded his head slightly.  Duo slipped out and, without so much as a glance, hurried to one of the cars parking a row down. 

When Quatre did not get out of their car, Trowa understood why.

As former teammates and current roommates, there was a conflict of interests local authorities could jump on.  It was a conflict that Une would have bow to if brought up enough.  So the primary officers were three men Trowa vaguely recognized.  They flanked Quatre, two on one side, one on the other.  They had most of Quatre's possessions.  One had his hand on Quatre’s elbow.  He steered him towards the elevator none too gently.  Trowa grit his teeth.  Quatre was probably already stirring with so many emotions that he could barely walk straight, and they were feeding him tension?

Duo, walking at Quatre's back, didn’t approve either.  He gave the gripping Preventer a hard nudge in the back.  The Preventer threw Duo a nasty look but loosened his grip. 

The elevator was at the end of their row, so Heero and Trowa waited by it.  Heero called the elevator down when the small knot of Preventers reached the end of the row and turned towards them.  Trowa looked Quatre over.  There was blood but only small flecks on his pant legs.  He didn’t appear wounded, so it must have been the attacker’s.  Quatre’s clothes were a little wrinkled, and his hair was ruffled, as if he had been running his hands through it.  When they got closer, Quatre glanced up at him.  The last few hours had drained him of color.   But his eyes were a feverish blue.  He must have spent too long thinking and analyzing and being constantly frustrated in his attempts to understand.

Quatre slowed, tilting his head slightly as he looked at Trowa.  It was only then Trowa realized that with his duffle bag slung across his back, the nylon strap emphasized the faint rise of his breasts under his jacket.  If he weren't so anxious, Trowa might have blushed. 

Quatre gave him a small, crooked smile.  One that was nervous and tired but genuinely warm.  When the elevator dinged and they piled in, Quatre made a point of brushing the back of his hand against Trowa's.

There wasn’t enough space in the carriage, so Trowa waited in the garage with Heero. 

"Waiting long," Heero asked.

"Twenty-three minutes and eleven seconds."

"They were more argumentative than I expected.  I flashed my badge twice and cited the regulations _their_ commissioner had signed, and they still insisted on bringing Quatre in."

"Protecting their own."

"And I'm protecting ours.  I ended up having to call Une, who had the order come from their chief.  They weren't happy."

"Don't imagine they would be."

"Kept Quatre in that damn car for another half hour."

"Where is it?"

"Police impound soon enough.  Une let them have the scene.  We have to send over our reports."

That could be problematic.  "Oh."

"She wasn't happy about it, but she wanted Quatre here."

"Are we at least getting copies of the forensics reports?"

"If we don't, then someone over there is going to get a very angry phone call."

Trowa and Heero lapsed back into silence.  Trowa eventually shifted his duffle bag to his hand and then the ground.  Where would they take Quatre?  He had to be "interrogated," and there were a few places it could be done.  A conference room would probably work best.  Une’s office would be more comfortable, but if the locals got wind of that, it could be a problem.  Trowa just hoped they wouldn’t use one of the holding cells on the top floor.  The atmosphere wouldn’t do Quatre any favors.  Une was aware of his empathy, however, and Duo was there.  He had to have enough clout in the organization to force a change of local if the need arose.

"Do we know anything yet,” Trowa asked after a moment.

Heero shook his head.  "I told Quatre not to say anything, and forensics hasn't contacted us.  But they haven't had much time."

The elevator dinged.  The doors slid open.  Heero put his foot against the catch. 

"Sorry,” he said quietly.  Trowa tilted his head slightly. “For yelling."

Trowa flushed slightly and shook his head once.  "I should have checked my phone.  Thanks for being persistent."

"I should be thanking you.  With Catherine leaving tomorrow and—" Heero paused and looked momentarily both uncomfortable and bitter, before shrugging, "I didn't think you’d come."

Heero stepped into the elevator.  The doors started to close behind him.  So Trowa didn't have time to be surprised, unless he wanted to walk.  He barely managed to slip between the doors with his duffle bag. 

The ride wasn’t long enough for Trowa to ask Heero exactly where he expected Trowa to be after finding out Quatre had been attacked.  And when the doors opened, he was so surprised at seeing a sulking Duo that he forgot about asking all together.         

Heero blinked once.  "Une's office?"

"Conference room.  Une kicked me out," he muttered.

"Not surprised," he said.

"Those idiots don’t know him.  They'll freak him out."

"You live with him.  The cops would have a field day.  Quatre will be fine."

Duo frowned, arms crossed mutinously over his chest.  He sulked for another few seconds before noticing Trowa. "Trowa?"

"Yes, Duo."

"When'd you get here?"

"About twenty minutes before you did."

Heero shook his head when Duo looked at him.  "You were talking to Quatre."

" _You_  used your cell phone while driving?  Where the hell is my calendar?"

Heero sneered at him.  "Duo."

"No, I need to document this for the next time you cite the perception rate and reaction time drops—"

"Don't you have work to do?"

They couldn't just sit around and wait, as much as they wanted to.  So Heero and Duo excused themselves and slipped back behind the closed doors of a classified prep meeting.  Trowa could, theoretically, loiter outside Quatre’s conference room.  All the rooms were sound-proofed, however, and the camera system had been updated recently and he hadn't bothered to hack it yet.  Besides, waiting there would just aggravate his already fraying nerves.  Trowa needed a distraction.

The floor was deserted; most of the night operatives worked a level above or below them.  Since Une generally stayed late, however, half of the overhead fluorescents were on.  It was still dark enough that Trowa needed his desk lamp.  Trowa dropped his bag by his desk and draped his coat over the chair before sitting down and pulling over the nearest stack of papers.

Quatre was upstairs for nearly three hours.  In those three hours, several things happened.  In the first hour, several people hurried past his desk.  Most were involved in various errands of much more importance than curiosity and didn’t stop, but one or two paused just before or after his desk and looked at him.  It wasn’t every day that an operative came to work in plain clothes. 

Duo also stopped by near the end of that hour.  He dropped off a Styrofoam cup.  He came back five minutes later and switched it with the one that actually had tea.  Trowa thanked him anyway.

In the second hour, the forensics team called.  Of all the evidence they gathered—Quatre's bloodied license, the bloodied ticket and clipboard, six bullets matching the make and model of his gun and the unopened ammo box, no immediate signs of struggle—one piece had Une rushing to and from her office as fast as her flats allowed.

Quatre hadn't shot a cop six times in the head; he had shot a cop-killer, which made the local precinct only slightly less irritated.  They preferred executing their own cop-killers. 

It wasn't even a matter of mismatched finger prints or handwriting.  Both the head of forensics and the coroner had known Officer Johnson.  The Middle-Eastern man with the ripped-up skull, broad-shoulder and sturdy as he was, was not brown-haired, green-eyed, English-white Johnson.  It had taken only about an hour for the police to find him along his evening-patrol route: naked and abandoned in a dumpster with a broken neck.  The family would be contacted after he was checked for evidence and cleaned up a bit.

Forensics and the coroner's office were working on identification.  They would send any findings over immediately.

Quatre wasn’t off the hook, of course, but he wasn’t being gunned after by almost every precinct in the district anymore.  That was a definite improvement.  Heero informed Trowa of all of this during the last thirty minutes of the second hour, when he had slipped out for coffee.

Early in the last hour, Trowa got a text message.  He felt it vibrating against his chair in the usual three-beat pattern.  Not that Trowa need the pattern to know who it was.  He should have been in the alley hours ago.  Trowa waited until he had finished his current paper to answer it.  Even knowing the hell Fahd would put him through, Trowa hadn't quite mentally prepared himself for refusing to come.  He refused to think about whether or not it was because he was afraid to sleep alone, or because he was afraid that Fahd would unexpectedly arrive at the house.  At least he had a few compromised planned out by the time he put his pen down. 

Trowa sat back and reached into his coat pocket.  He took out the cell phone and flipped it open.  The text message, with its black letters scrawled across a blue-white screen, blinded him.

At the end of that third hour, Heero and Duo walked past his desk and towards the elevator.  Trowa had enough sense to snap the phone shut as they approached.  He twisted around in his chair and grabbed his bag.  If either of them thought the movement was oddly jerky, they didn't mention it.  The probably thought it was the anxiety.  Heero, kindly as possible, told him to wait.  Trowa wasn't an active Preventer; he wasn't allowed upstairs.  They'd bring Quatre down.  Trowa felt a momentary, healthy sting of irritation that he quickly lost hold of.  He sank back into his chair as they went into the elevator.

When they returned fifteen minutes later, Quatre was with them.  Duo had an arm tight about his shoulders.  Tired as he had to be, Quatre still smiled a warm, crooked smile.  Trowa did his best to smile back, unlocking his fury-tightened jaw to keep himself from grimacing.

"We'll bring him back in a couple of hours.  Une gave us clearance." Heero said.  Trowa nodded once.

"Let's go home," Quatre muttered. 

Trowa followed them, keeping to the back without looking like he was as they headed for the garage.  He didn't trust his hold on himself, and Quatre was suffering enough.  In the garage, he waited for Quatre to sink into the back seat before walking stiffly to his bike.  Trowa slipped his bag over his chest and shoved his helmet on his head.  Then, he had to relinquish his crushing hold on the cellphone.  He wasn’t stable enough to ride one-handed.

Driving an uncomfortably sane speed behind them, Trowa considered throwing the phone into the street, and then running over it a few times.  He didn't.  The pilot in him knew the dangers of knee-jerk reactions.  A text message wasn't proof.  It was an accusation.  Maybe a confession.  Probably a slip.

_A coincidence._

Trowa swerved hard, throttling the snide, know-it-all mental snigger into silence. 

It wasn't proof, but Trowa could find proof.  He was exceptionally good at it.  He had made a career out of it.  The question was: could he find it fast enough? 

Trowa wasn't worried about another attempted assassination.  Unless the next assassin was particularly clever, and they generally weren't, they'd all end up dead, and in various stages of dismemberment depending on which one of them they attempted.

No.  Trowa was worried about losing hold of his logic, which was reminding him, even now, that he could not kill Fahd.  Not yet.  Not without proof.

Friday.  That was his deadline.  Three days.  Hopefully, Fahd would call him over on Wednesday; he didn’t want to have to adjust the timeline.  Fahd probably would.  He generally kept his word. 

Trowa grit his teeth as he remembered the message.

**_"Something's come up.  I can't see you.  Not for a couple of days.  Wednesday.  I'll probably see you Wednesday."_ **

Wednesday.  Wednesday was perfect.  Trowa would search for proof on Wednesday.  He would find it on Wednesday.  Thursday, at the absolute latest.

And on Friday, he’d kill him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably my favorite chapter, even though writing a bad ass Quatre was really hard.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Silencer returns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: blood, violence, death threats, swearing

 

The next forty-eight hours were absolutely critical.  Not that Trowa had squandered his time before that.  He had made a large number of phone calls, and hacked a number of systems, in the thirty-plus hours between Thursday morning and Friday night.  More, perhaps, than he should have.  But Heero and Duo were still running split shifts, so Trowa had felt safe.  After all, Heero couldn’t be nearly as observant as usual when heading a ten-men operation half by himself.

And Duo was never that observant in the first place.               

Trowa, however, knew better than to leave anything—especially success—to chance.  So by the time he felt Nizar drive over the rumble strip stretched over the entrance of the garage, he had already made and dismissed no less than three plans.  He was just finishing making a few necessary adjustments to the final, fourth plan when Nizar parked.  In a few seconds, Nizar’s hand closed around his elbow.  He guided Trowa, as usual, out of the car.  When Trowa stepped onto the concrete, he was confident that everything had been considered and accounted for.  Even the more mundane hazards like traffic and hours of operation.                   

He started his internal mission clock outside the elevator.               

Approximately seven minutes in, the elevator stopped at the top floor.  Nizar pocketed the blindfold and led him down the bright hallway.  Trowa adjusted his stride a fraction, falling back just enough for a quick and safe sweep of the hall.  Everything lined up with the building plans.  There were vents on ceiling and floor but nothing wide enough for a body.  At the far end of the hall, there was a stairwell.  As far as Trowa could tell, there were no seams in the paint.  He had roughly a twenty-percent chance, then, that opening it would set off an alarm.                

A little risky, but it was better than the five-percent chance that the elevator _didn’t_ have a camera. 

Trowa rolled his eyes briefly over the ceiling.  Cameras were hanging at intervals of approximately twenty feet.  Only one was pointed directly at Fahd’s door.  It was a third down the hall.  There was a camera much closer to the door, but it was set at a bad angle.  As long as Trowa kept the bodies against the wall, it wouldn’t be a problem.  

At eight minutes, Nizar stopped outside of the penthouse.  At eight minutes and four seconds, Trowa stopped beside him.  A jolt of fear thrust his stomach into his throat not half a second later, and it took him almost five seconds to shove it back down. 

On some level, Trowa had expected that sort of reaction.  He still wanted to kick himself for it.  It shouldn’t matter that Fahd had regressed Wednesday night.  It shouldn’t matter that Fahd had brought some of his more brutal tendencies back to the bedroom and stained an expensive-looking set of sheets with Trowa’s blood.  It shouldn’t matter that Trowa had felt, for one brief and agonizing moment, mind-numbing fear. 

Unfortunately, it did. 

Trowa tried to remind himself that he _had_ expected unpleasantness Wednesday night, and that he had talked himself into being prepared.  The first meeting, the first conversation, really—because Trowa simply didn’t count a handful of text messages as conversation—between the hirer of a dead hit-man and the friend/roommate of the still-living victim was bound to be strained.  Trowa would have been stupid not to expect Fahd to take out frustration on him.  And while he was many things, Trowa wasn’t _that_ stupid. 

But Trowa should have expected to black out, and he hadn’t.  He should have expected to wake up disoriented and weak, and he hadn’t.  He should have expected that getting to the door on his own after all that would have been impossible.  And he hadn’t.  Instead, Trowa had let himself be fooled into thinking that a snide comment and a bruise or two was the worse Fahd would do. 

He had forgotten Fahd didn’t actually care.

That didn’t stop the fear from fluttering in his stomach as he stood outside Fahd’s door, though.  In the hands of an expert, however, fear was an excellent tool.  And now that he was aware of it, Trowa could control it.  At a key moment, he could recoil just enough, or let just enough terror flicker through his eyes, to nudge Fahd into the right position.  If he was observant and careful. 

With that in mind, he followed Nizar into the apartment.  Trowa kept his shoulders slightly rounded and hesitated, briefly but obviously, as he crossed the threshold.  One of the guards made a soft sound in his throat as he passed.  Trowa glanced back at him.  The guard had done the same Wednesday night, growling with such ferocity that it was quite clear to Trowa that he would gleefully savage Trowa for the loss of his partner.  Tonight, though, there was a familiar lift in the noise.  It took Trowa a moment to recognize it.  He was laughing.  He was enjoying Trowa’s fear.

Trowa grit his teeth.  He knew that the second the door closed behind him, the bastard was going to lean back and blissfully imagine everything he could do to Trowa.  Which meant that Trowa was going to catch him off guard.  Trowa bit his tongue against a grim smile.  _Good._

Trowa noticed subtle movement on his other side.  The _other_ guard, new to him since Wednesday, stared at the carpet with surprising intensity.  Shorter and paler than his new partner, he shifted, head raising and tilting just enough to suggest he was glancing back at Trowa.  Trowa felt a momentary flash of guilt.  And then the door shut, and guilt became a dangerous indulgence that Trowa abandoned.

He had been momentarily distracted, so Trowa risked a pause to acclimate himself and reestablish his clock.  Eight minutes and eleven seconds.  Nizar was two steps ahead of him.  At three, he might get suspicious.  Trowa hurried forward carefully to his usual place just behind his shoulder. 

It usually took twenty-three seconds to move from the front door to the dinette in the kitchen.  Nizar was hurrying today, which roughly halved that time.  Trowa assumed that there was at least one traditional weapon (most likely a handgun) and a handful of makeshift ones along the way.  He turned his attention to angles.  The one between the front door and the living room was the trickiest, if Fahd and Nizar did not stay at the dinette.  And Trowa doubted they would.  If, however, they kept to the coffee table—or the leather armchairs circling it—then Trowa could go from bedroom to the door without incident.  As long as he was quiet.

Trowa had been practicing since Sunday, and was almost surprised at how quickly he fell back into the familiar habits.  Sweeping his thumb over the tense strap of his duffle bag, Trowa walked into the living room.

He stopped and almost lost track of his mission clock in sudden surprise.  Trowa blinked once and scrambled after the numbers.  Nine minutes and four, seven, eleven seconds and he was _not_ at the dinette.  Fahd was not at the dinette; he was in the living room, pacing, which wasn’t actually _that_ unusual.  Fahd wasn’t, however, following his usual circuit: a tight circle just in front of the coffee table.  Instead, he walked a long, wandering line that skirted most of the furniture.  Every few steps, Fahd would nod, careful of the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear, and shuffle through the papers he had in hand.

Fahd rounded an armchair, placing Trowa directly in his line of sight, and stopped.  Trowa stiffened.  But Fahd simply shook his head and muttered unintelligibly into the phone.  After a few seconds, he nodded, shifting the top sheet to the bottom before continuing his circuit. 

Fahd was completely focused and Trowa wasn’t sure how long that would last.  He knew, though, that when it ended, Fahd would have at least ten to twenty seconds to stare directly into the hallway every circuit.  _If he doesn’t just stay rooted to the spot._   Trowa could only think of one way to ensure Fahd neither paced nor stood.  Sex, however, was not an option.  That would ruin everything. 

He was going to have to be careful, and he would be.  Trowa just hoped this wasn’t a sign of upcoming complications.

Nizar had left him to join Fahd almost six seconds before.  Now he was following in Fahd’s wake, his mouth pulled back into a sneer.  Trowa watched them carefully.  Nizar must have expected something different.  Perhaps he had expected Fahd to be waiting for him, waiting to drop the phone and papers in his lap and abandon the chore for his usual pleasures.  And the fact that Fahd hadn’t obviously didn’t sit well with the man.  Nizar tried, with obvious frustration, to take the phone from him, and was rebuffed, with obvious irritation, by Fahd.  Fahd actually smacked Nizar’s hand with the papers once.

Black fury rolled across Nizar’s face.  Trowa, who had never actually seen it, couldn’t estimate how long an argument would last.  So he analyzed the living room as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Weaponry wasn’t his main concern.  Trowa already knew the numbers and shapes of the furniture and assumed that something lethal was hiding under at least the couch.  What worried him was visibility.  The interior designer had obviously had a taste for glass.  It was everywhere.  The dinette, the coffee table, some cabinets, and several other very large and essential pieces of furniture were glass and stainless-steel.  Many of the decorative pieces were of spun or blown glass, glittering in a variety of colors. And the windows, where they were, were expansive.  The living room was worst of all.  Pristine panels of thick plate glass composed two of the room’s walls, ending with the far wall of the attached kitchen and the hallway behind him.  In the day, the glass walls provided tons of natural light that probably played attractively with the room’s colors and furniture; at night, they provided an excellent view of the city in twilight and the later colors of evening.

And of the comings and goings of the room’s occupants themselves.

Trowa’s research had informed him that Fahd’s building wasn’t the tallest in the area.  There were two taller ones, only one of which was close enough for good visibility.  It was only a floor taller and just this side of the zoning codes of being too close.  Perfect for spying.  Luckily, it was on the east side of the building, and the glass living room was opened to the west.

Open to the west-viewing glass living room, however, was another apartment approximately the same height.  The eastern wall of the uppermost apartment of that building had quite a bit of glass, and was close enough for an observant occupant to watch the goings-on in this one. 

Worse, that apartment was occupied.

Its current occupants, however—a young, successful (considering the apartment’s monthly rent) couple—weren’t home.  Or they were sleeping.  Possibly having sex.  Either way, the concerning apartment was dark.  Trowa thought, however, that he saw a faint distant glow within it.  But he couldn’t be sure.  The reflections were quite bad. 

Trowa shifted to his left, just enough to move the questionable area out of reflected light.  And at that same moment, Nizar decided to snap something while gesturing violently at Trowa.  Tripping would have been less suspicious than the way Trowa snapped his body straight.

Fahd followed Nizar’s fingers, his eyes finally landing on Trowa.  He looked utterly surprised to see him.  Then, in the span of seconds, confusion gave way to memory, which melted quickly into a fury that Fahd quashed only with the greatest of efforts. 

In his distraction, Nizar managed to sneak both the phone and papers away.  He carried them to the kitchen, where he continued the phone conversation at the counter, spreading the papers over the smooth surface without a backwards glance.  Fahd sneered at his back before looking at Trowa.

“You look tired.”

Trowa shrugged a shoulder, careful to keep the movement small but smooth, turning his head just enough to seem mildly uncomfortable.  He didn’t want to invite, but he didn’t want to push Fahd away.  Not yet.

Fahd accepted the gesture, lips quirking into a small smile as he folded his arms.  “Well you can go take a nap.”

Trowa let a frown pull at his mouth.  “I never said I was tired.”

“A shrug’s the same as a nod when it comes to you.  Long week?”

Tempted as he was, Trowa didn’t rise to the bait.  Fahd had given him very few indications that he was aware of Trowa’s awareness, and he wanted to keep it that way.  Trowa couldn’t be sure, of course, but instinct told him he was okay: that, in all of his scrambling to stay that one tiny step ahead of the police and the Preventers, Fahd had forgotten that Trowa might connect him to the attack, and care enough to be furious.

Which suited Trowa just fine.  

“Long enough,” he answered.

“Go take a nap, then. Unless you’re still not sleeping.”

Of course he wasn’t sleeping, and at the word Trowa felt prickles of want.  He was quickly forgetting what sleep, whether it was full of terrors or utterly empty, was like.  He hadn’t slept all week, unless unconsciousness counted.   There had been too much to think about, too much to do.  He wanted it, though.  Nightmare-laced or wrapped in a tight human cage, Trowa wanted it with sick, heavy selfishness: a selfishness that told him to very hard about what he was planning to do. 

Fahd must have noticed Trowa’s sudden urge to kick himself.  He must have seen it on Trowa’s face or read it in his tightened body, because he approached him with an amused but slightly concerned expression.  In three strides, Fahd was arm’s-length away.  He reached out to cup Trowa’s chin.  Trowa recoiled with a force that was only partly faked.

Trowa expected anger and was not surprised.  The momentary rage, however, was not actually directed at him.  As he pulled back, Fahd glared at his fingers as though they were entirely to blame. 

When he spoke, Fahd’s voice was carefully flat.  “There are few things I have left to do, but I should be there in an hour or so.  Sleep, if you can.  I won’t wake you.”           

Fahd didn’t wait.  He headed for the kitchen, stopping only once to run a hand through his hair.  Trowa watched him argue with Nizar quietly.  Once Fahd started trying to wrap his hand around the phone, Trowa turned and left.               

Less than fifteen minutes into the mission and Trowa was heading to the bedroom.  Alone.  He had an hour—possibly more if Nizar decided to be difficult—to work.  He was ahead of schedule.  He had extra time.  But instead of deciding how many more miles, or how many hacked systems, that time gave him, Trowa stopped and wondered after that look of loathing.             

Then, Trowa saw the locked door.  The one between the living room and the bedroom.  The one he had opened and barely managed to escape Wednesday night.  Nizar’s desk (he had found several of Nizar’s ties and one of his jackets lying across it) was across from the door, angled so that he would have an acceptable peripheral view.  Trowa wondered if Nizar had noticed his jacket and files had been moved.  He wondered if, should he open the door again, he would find them now in a drawer.             

They could be in the briefcase.  They could be nestled between emails in excellent English and passable French: the ones that asked after dead or missing mercenaries and requested the audio discs that landed a dead doctor in a prison cell.             

Sneering, Trowa hurried to the bedroom.   Closing the door softly was an effort, but it was essential that Trowa remained alone.  Trowa set his duffle bag on the desk and started unpacking.  He threw the gun on the bed while his laptop was booting up.

*-----*-----* 

Nizar was going to kill Winner.  He was going to put a bullet in every joint the boy had so that, in the end, the brat would only be able to tremble as Nizar strangled him.  He was going to squeeze to life out of the little bastard; he was going to crush the skinny, white throat with his bare hands.  And when the brat’s face was just turning blue and his eyes were just starting to roll, Nizar was going to ease off and give him a taste of air before squeezing again.               

Nizar was going to kill him slowly and enjoy it.  It was the least Winner deserved.            

Fahd disagreed, of course, but Fahd didn’t understand.  He honestly couldn’t, because Nizar had been very clear and firm with him: the individual was not important.  The fact that Hamid had been killed was not nearly as important as the fact that Hamid had been killed by his target and his body had been captured by the police.  _That_ was crucial.  _That_ needed their immediate and absolute attention.

Fahd had risen to the occasion expertly.  In the too-short span of a few days, Fahd had managed to keep them a few small steps ahead of the police.  Which, considering the monumental task of erasing a man’s existence, was no small feat.  The mentor in Nizar applauded Fahd’s efficiency and dedication, his willingness to endure the late nights and early mornings, the little food, and the phone calls that came with ensuring a dead man left no trace their organization.

The leader in him wanted to smash the phone against Fahd’s head.

Getting too attached had always been Nizar’s problem, one that nearly earned him a dishonorable discharge in his military career.  In his “retirement,” he had tried to be extraordinarily careful.  Never get too close.  Show little concern, no affection.  Reward cold and efficiently, scold ruthlessly.  It had been quite effective.  Respect for him—and him for them—had been astoundingly high while affection had been crushed to near nonexistence.

Hamid, however, had been an exception.  It wasn’t affection but rather an enormous sense of pride that flooded Nizar when it came to him.  Nizar had recruited Hamid himself, shortly after Hamid’s graduation from the academy.  His performance there had been abysmal; he could expect nothing but a long, grueling career in the military, clinging to the lowest rungs.  Nizar, however, had seen in him a certain dedication, a certain thirst, that could lead to an excellent addition to their organization.  And he had not been disappointed.

The problem with the academy was the style of direction.  Hamid hadn’t needed a reference book of rules and regulations, and the threat of punishment if he so much as glanced in the wrong direction.  He needed a goal and the freedom to reach it on his own terms.  He needed space for imagination and creativity.  When he got it, Hamid had operated with such astonishing precision and focus that in three short years, he had risen to the top of the assassin branch. 

Hamid’s success rate, with weapons or bare-handed, was almost impossibly high.  Nizar could count the man’s failures on one hand.  Hamid was, quite honestly, the best they had.  And a scrawny, tender-hearted, political _staffer_ had put six bullets in his head. 

Nizar dropped the papers, including the carefully rewritten profiles of their “staffers,” down on the coffee table before he ended up shredded them.

Fahd, who was leaning against the counter, tilted his head at him.  Nizar waved the glance away.  Fahd frowned He sighed and turned towards the phone at his ear, making a quick note on one of the papers on the counter.

Fahd was relatively supportive of Nizar’s fury; Nizar liked to consider it repayment for most of the whims he had endured.  He wished, though, that Fahd would let him handle some of the phone calls.  Nizar needed the distraction.  Fahd was under the impression, though, that Nizar couldn’t be trusted with the phone.  He seemed to think that Nizar would ignore his duty and call for a strike team to take out the little bastard and his house.

In his defense, Nizar had only _considered_ it. 

Killing Winner now would be a logistical nightmare, if not practically impossible.  The Preventers were irritatingly efficient when it came to protecting their own.  Within twelve hours, they had snatched up their high-profile informant and placed him in the protective custody of two highly-skilled Preventers: his roommates.

There were, of course, ways to reach him.  Under the  terms of the protective order, someone had to be with Winner at all times, which meant that Yuy and Maxwell’s shifts had to be changed.  Under normal circumstances, this would have meant absolutely nothing to Nizar; the two pilots were extremely lethal, together or alone.  Right now, though, Yuy and Maxwell were heading a round-the-clock, top-priority operation. They were in too deep to hand it off, and they were too attached to Winner to trust him with anyone.  So they split the work.  Duo usually took the morning shift, Heero the evening.

According to their insider, they were starting to feel the strain.  And he would know, having been brought over from the failed sting.  The two pilots were usual all the usual signs of stress and sleep deprivation: headaches, forgetfulness, irritation.  Maxwell in particular was becoming more forgetful than was usual, and Wednesday night Yuy had flat-out yelled at someone. 

Unfortunately, if he actually wanted to risk an attack, Nizar would have to wait another week.  By then, the stress and sleep deprivation would have seriously affected Maxwell’s reaction times.  Yuy would need two more. 

Equally unfortunate, Nizar had no idea what sort of defenses they had.  He expected, however, that they were efficient, thorough, and lethal.  Especially if Yuy had set them up. 

And there was still the small matter of Winner’s six bullets.  Little though Nizar wanted to admit it, that number was too high, and in too small of an area, to be simple “luck.”

But Nizar wanted the bastard.  He wanted his head, and he was going to get it.  One way or another.

He was just starting to wonder—wonder of course, not actually plan—how effective a sniper would be when Fahd dropped onto the couch, swearing. 

“The bastards called the academy.”

The academy kept records of the careers of all their graduates, even those who transitioned into the “private sector.”  Nizar was sure they hadn’t purged those records yet.

“Damn it.”

“Essa cut them off.  Cited some ancient regulation about private sector’s graduates’ personal information being classified—”

“They’ll get a warrant.”

“Yes, but it will take them hours because of jurisdictions and political bureaucracy.  Plenty of time for Essa to clean the slate and wipe his fingers.”

Nizar nodded.  Fahd pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Anything else?”

“The bitch wants more money.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Remembering all those names and dates and _things_ is going to be hard, she says,” Fahd sneered.  “Their first meeting, their first date, his favorite food, what he wanted to call his first-born.  It’s too much, she says, and she’d hate it if something accidentally slipped.”

“If she likes having her mother and sister alive, then something won’t.”

Fahd frowned. “I don’t want to go there.”

“Money talks, death doesn’t.  Where’s her number?”

“I thought you had it,” he said, nudging the pile of papers on the coffee table with his foot.

Nizar swept up the papers, thumbing through them for the “fiancé’s” contact information.  He growled after a minute of fruitless searching.  Sighing, Fahd pushed himself off the couch and headed back to the kitchen.  He searched through the papers on the counter.

Nizar was just about to start a second, slower read-through when he felt it: a small tingling on the back of his neck.  It came with the very strange but very real idea that he had heard something: a floor board barely creaking, or a foot landing almost silently.  Nizar glanced over his shoulder.  The doorway was empty.  For a moment, he thought he saw a darker blot down in the left corner, in the shadowed hall—a blot that could be a crouching body.  Nizar stepped towards the door. 

Then Fahd swore.  Nizar blinked, and the blot was gone.

“Are you sure it’s not in that pile?”

Nizar turned back to his papers.  He thumbed through them slowly, resisting the urge to glance behind him  His attention, though, lingered on those small, not-quite sounds and that one not-quite shadow.  He had flipped through five or six pages without reading a word when he heard the click.

And he _had_ heard a click.  A distinctive, metal-on-metal ring as a latch slid into place.  Someone had closed a door.  The front door, most likely; it was the closest.  Someone had opened and then closed the front door.  _Carefully_.  Someone didn’t want to be heard. 

Nizar stuffed the papers under his arm.  He was about to bolt into the hallway, under the pretense of looking for the number in the mess of files he kept in his room, when Fahd shouted.

“Found it!”

With the greatest reluctance, Nizar turned away from doorway.  He tossed the papers on the coffee table.  “Great,” he muttered.  “Get the phone.”

Fahd carried the phone from the counter, staring down at the number pad as he dialed.  He stopped a few feet away from Nizar.  Hand on his hip, Fahd listened to the first and then the second ring.  On the third Fahd’s slightly-tilted head straightened.  His mouth dropped open.  The line clicked.  Nizar turned, catching Fahd’s thumbing hurrying to disconnect the call out of the corner of his eye.

Barton didn’t waste bullets.  While Nizar was pulling out his gun, he fired two shots.  Nizar crumpled to his knees.  As he swayed from the white hot pain licking up his legs, Barton fired a third.  Nizar heard rather than felt the gun spin from his hand.  He fell forward, catching himself momentarily on his wounded hand, which quickly collapsed under his weight. 

Barton aimed the fourth bullet at his head.

Nizar couldn’t see Fahd.  He could tell, though, by the silence that Fahd was surprised.  Whether it was useful, calculative surprise, or dangerous mind-numbing shock, though, he didn’t know. 

Barton spoke first, and Nizar shivered despite himself at the flat sound.  “I could kill him.”

Nizar risked a glance.  Barton wasn’t looking at him.  His gun steady and leveled with Nizar’s skull, Barton stared straight ahead, at Fahd.  His face was completely expressionless, and the one green eye Nizar could see radiated cold determination.  Lethal and efficient. 

“Could you,” Fahd answered slowly.  His voice was just soft enough to betray his fear.

Barton’s mouth twitched.  The corners lifted a fraction, making him suddenly bitter and slightly demented. 

“I don’t want to kill people,” he said, his voice still even and cold despite the small, twisted smile. 

For several seconds, Fahd said nothing.  Then he shifted.  Barton’s eye narrowed, but he said nothing.  As the seconds wore on, Nizar had the sudden feeling that he was missing a crucial conversation.  The air grew heavy with silent words and accusations.

“I didn’t,” Fahd finally said.

“You _tried_.”

They were silent again.  After a few short seconds, Barton’s mouth twitched.  He shifted, his gun hand rotating ever so slightly as his finger began to squeeze the trigger.

“What do you want,” Fahd asked.  Nizar wanted to kick him for sounding so obviously frightened.

“Confess.”

After a few seconds, there was a rustling.  When he answered, Fahd’s voice was lighter, so Nizar knew that he was smiling faintly.  He probably had his arms open, just enough to seem defenseless. 

“Where would you like me to start?”

If he could convince him, if he could lead him with well-practiced charm, Fahd could get control of the situation.  He had done it before.  Barton, however, wouldn’t let him.  He stared at that soft, disarming smile and into those even softer, almost repentant eyes, and was unmoved.

“Not to me.”

It took Nizar nearly ten seconds to understand exactly what Barton meant, which was three seconds slower than Fahd.  Fahd had already walked around Nizar’s prone body.  He was practically shoulder-to-shoulder with Barton, and showing no signs of stopping, when Nizar forced himself up with his good hand.

“Don’t you dare,” Nizar barked at Fahd’s back, trembling from pain and fury.    He wouldn’t.  Fahd wouldn’t dare, not after all these years.  Not after all the work and sacrifices.  But Fahd wasn’t stopping.  He was next to Barton, who tensed but didn’t turn his head, and then past him.  He was feet from the door and refusing to take advantage of Barton’s focus.  Fahd was at the door, reaching for the handle—

“I’m not worth it!”

Just as he hoped, Fahd stopped with his hand on the doorframe.  His head dipped forward.  His fingers dug into the wood.  Trembling and slightly light-headed, Nizar breathed a shaky sigh.  He wouldn’t.  He _knew_ Fahd wouldn’t.  Fahd had collected and kept every scrap of cloth, every tattered book, every bit of trash he could.  He wouldn’t idly throw away Ilham’s rebellion.  Certainly not for Nizar.

Barton seemed to sense that.  When Fahd stopped, he had waited a second or two before sliding his eyes slowly to the side.  When it was clear that Fahd wasn’t going to move, the corner of Barton’s mouth dipped inwards.  His jaw moved slowly as he chewed at it.

Finally, Fahd laid his head back and sighed.  As he turned, Nizar began to ease himself back down onto his side.  He caught Fahd’s eyes and nearly fell.

He was such a fool.

Fahd, young as he had been, devoted as he had been, had taken Ilham’s death hard.  And the day of his young master’s meager funeral had marked fifteen years since Nizar had seen any of his children.  Nizar had reached out, reached past that barrier he had put up between student and teacher, and set his hand on Fahd’s shoulder with the grieving warmth of a father.  He had encouraged a deeper attachment between them, nurtured it; when Fahd had shown signs of rage and loathing towards his father, Nizar nurtured that too. 

He had told himself it was for the cause.  That the rebellion would need a new leader, a new face, and that the face of the strong, healthy heir was perfect.  He had told himself, as he drew Fahd closer and the boy—then the teenager, and then the man—relied on him and trusted him, that it was necessary.  That Ilham would have approved.  Nizar had told himself that it was the only way to get both the rebellion and the country exactly where he wanted them.

The family that he never saw had nothing to do with it.

And because it had nothing to do with it, Nizar had forgotten the lengths he had gone to for Fahd’s affection.  He had let the affection slink to the back of his mind.  And there it had waited patiently for the proper to snatch back Nizar’s attention.

For Fahd stared at him with a brutal mix of emotions Nizar had seen only once.  But he was no longer that bitter, scared seven-year-old.  Now he was a man, bitter over the fact that he was being forced to choose between equally precious people and terrified that either choice was wrong.

Wrong or not, though, Fahd made it.  With a swallow, he turned away from Nizar and left the living room.

Nizar dropped his head to the carpet. 

Barton didn’t move when Fahd left.  He didn’t turn his head when Fahd dropped the keys twice or when he opened the door.  When there was too long of a pause, though, between opening and closing of the front door, Barton shifted and rotated the gun some again. 

Fahd was obviously stopped in the doorway.  He was probably gripping the handle as he thought or second-guessed, or swayed from the sight of his probably very dead body guards.  Whatever it was, though, it didn’t keep him long.  The front door closed.

Barton didn’t fire.

It made sense to wait, of course.  One should never waste their advantage, and Barton had no way of knowing with absolute certainty that Fahd had gone.  The likelihood that he was waiting outside the door, or even somehow managing a counterattack, was high enough for caution.  So, since turning Fahd over to the Preventers seemed to be Barton’s goal, killing Nizar before Fahd was in route was counter-productive.

Ten minutes, though, was the average that most people under high duress waited.  Those ten minutes passed, but there was no brief but brutal sensation of a bullet ripping through his skull.  Barton mustn’t have been aware of the soundproofing and, as an extra precaution, was waiting for distance to muffle the gunshot. 

At fifteen minutes, though, Barton still hadn’t fired.  Then, just before twenty, he let out a shaky sigh and lowered the gun. 

Nizar was too confused, and far too lightheaded, to say anything as Barton ran a hand agitatedly through his hair.  Without a glance, Barton turned and hurried into the hall.  Nizar shifted and noticed then the duffle bag poking out from around the corner. 

Why had he never made a point of taking his bag?  Nizar would’ve noticed the weight difference.

Barton dug in the duffle bag for a moment before standing.  He slung it over his shoulder, turned, and walked back towards Nizar.  Blood loss and two shot knee caps were finally seriously affecting Nizar’s focus, so he felt momentary fear when Barton stopped a few feet away and raised his hand. 

A black cell phone hit Nizar on the nose. 

“Hospitals ask questions,” Barton said with the old, warmer crispness in his voice.  For a moment, his face stretched with mild concern, anxiety, and a touch of fear.  And then it smoothed.  The coldness crept back into his eyes.  Barton turned and left. 

After several minutes of silence, Nizar glared at the phone next to his head. 

Of course, hospitals asked questions.  It was in their nature, which always made them risky.  Normally, Nizar wasn’t stupid enough to call an ambulance.  But with his head riding on blood loss and pain, and the small sliver of sense he had clinging to his mistakes, Nizar admitted he had considered it.

Barton had dropped the phone the right side of his head.  It was only slightly difficult to reach over and take it with his left.

Nizar turned the unfamiliar black phone over in his fingers, careful not to drop it.  He wasn’t sure if he could pick it up again if he did.  Nizar flipped it open with his thumb and frowned at the slowly spinning numbers.  There were several people he could call.  Untangling their numbers, though, was proving difficult.  Finally he latched onto one.  Nizar dialed it carefully with his thumb, hoping as he did that this was Barton’s phone and not one he had swiped.

Nizar would like to find him one day and return his bullets. 

The line clicked and after a moment there was a concerned sounding “Sir?”

“If you do not get to me before the police do, alive or dead I will see you hanged.”

*-----*-----*

Une had never been happier about hiring Gundam pilots than right now.

“I assure you, Ms. Une,” said Fahd Kader, sporting a suit without jacket or tie and a tired but amused smile, “there is no need for guns.”

Three of the five operatives she had brought down to the parking garage had already lowered their guns.  Two of those were taking a cue from the third; Leon had lowered his gun almost immediately after leaving the elevator.  As the senior-most operative in the room, he took command in the event that Une could not.  Seeing Kader in her parking lot had struck Une speechless.

Duo, however, knew when to break the chain of command.   His gun was steady, aimed to kill.  So was Eric’s, because Eric would never lower his gun without _her_ say so.  Duo did a quick but thorough sweep of the garage for   reinforcements.

“I promise you, Duo Maxwell, I’m alone—”

“Step away from the truck,” Duo ordered as he scanned a dark corner for movement.  Kader took a few steps away from the large pick-up truck.

“—and unarmed.”

Duo flicked his eyes to him.  “Keep your hands where we can see them, then.”

Kader’s smile stretched into a bitter sort of grimace as he raised his hands.  “You have some very good operatives, Ms. Une.”

“Better than good,” Une said.  She glanced to the side once.  “Some of them anyway.”

The three lowered guns snapped up.

“Looks empty,” Duo said finally. “I can do a quick sweep.”

Duo was the best shot at present, and in the top five overall.  She wasn’t going to lose him to a knife in the dark. 

“Take Williams with you,” she said.  Duo took two steps back.  Kader sighed.

“I promise, I brought no one with me.”

Duo had already pulled the skinny, confused Preventer out of the line.  Une nodded once.  “Take Williams and sweep the garage.”

“You are quite thorough, even when it’s pointless.”

Une frowned at him.  “Are you unaware of your terrorist status?”

“Absolutely not.”

“How about the fact that five police organizations, three colonies, and half a dozen countries have been scrambling for your arrest?”

“I heard a thing or two about that, yes.  There was also that sting of yours.”

“Do you honestly expect me to believe, in light of all that, that there isn’t at least one assassin hiding in my parking lot?”

“He’s not hiding.”

Kader hadn’t been looking at her when he said it.  He had been looking to her right, where four of her operatives (including Duo) were still standing in a loose knot.  There was a beat of silence.

Then several things happened almost at once.  Someone let out an angry scream.  A gun went off.  Eric’s shoulder drove into her chest and pushed her back.  The ceiling over their heads let out a splintering crack.  Plaster and cement rained down on them.   

William was almost directly behind them.  He caught Une beneath the arms before she hit the pavement and pulled her back from the knot of flailing limbs in front of her.  Duo had his arms around Leon’s neck, trying to hold him until the one of the other two operatives got his gun.  Leon sacrificed the weapon and managed to slip an arm through their grip.  He drove his elbow into Duo’s stomach and knocked him flat.  Leon turned and barreled through the other Preventers. 

Eric untangled himself from her and chased after him. 

Leaner of the two, Eric caught up before Leon broke fifty feet.  He lunged and caught Leon around the waist.  They crashed to the floor.  Leon wriggled out, stumbled up, and aimed a kick at Eric’s head.  Eric barely rolled out of the way in time.  On his feet, teeth bared in an angry snarled, Eric sprang forward, and with the controlled brutality that only years of Krav Maga could give, thrust his elbow into Leon’s eye before latching onto his arm and throwing Leon over his shoulder and into the nearest car.  Leon grunted as he hit the hood.  He slid down the dented metal with a groan. 

“Now there are no assassins in your parking garage,” Kader said after a moment of silence.  He sounded, and looked,  incredibly bored.  “To be honest, he was terrible at it.  I used him mostly for information, and he could barely do that well.  I should’ve shot him months ago.”

Une stared at the motionless lump. 

Kader shrugged once.  “Shall we move onto the arresting and the reading of my rights?  Or do the Preventers have different procedures?”

All of her operatives had lost their guns in the struggle, but none of them landed anywhere near her.  Which was a shame, because Une wanted nothing more than to shoot Kader in the head.

“I don’t like being toyed with.”

“No toying.  I’m just trying to assist—”

“In your own arrest?”

“I believe the phrase is ‘I’m coming in quietly’.”

“Alone?”

Kader sneered.  “I think we’ve already established that.”

“Of your own volition?”

“Of course not,” he said.  “Unfortunately, Trowa is currently holding my advisor at gunpoint, so he couldn’t bring me in himself.”

Duo had been getting to his feet, using William as a stabilizer.  So when Kader mentioned Trowa, he nearly pulled Williams over. 

“What,” Duo asked.

“Arrest him,” Une ordered, glaring at Kader.  He returned it unflinching, even going so far as to bring his hands down and hold them out in front of him with a vague smile.

“What do you—Une, what does—”

“Arrest him, Maxwell,” she barked.  She turned and strode to the elevator.  “Get him into a cell, and then get in my office.”  Une slammed hit the call button with her fist.  As the elevator dinged, she spat over her shoulder.  “Toss _that_ in a cell, too.”     

Une was well aware, as she rode the elevator alone, that she was leaving good operatives very vulnerable.   But she also had irritating inclination that Kader wasn’t misleading them.  He had come alone and unarmed, in a traceable pickup truck.  He had given her the rat in her organization.  He had even suggested that she take her time coming down when he first called her office.  Gather some men and comb your hair, he said.  He’d wait he said.

Une had only done the first.

No, Kader wasn’t trying to trick her.  He was turning himself in, for some reason.  A reason that involved Trowa Barton.

She pinched the bridge of her nose.  Une hadn’t gotten around to imagining what arresting Fahd Kader would be like, but it certainly wasn’t supposed to be like this.  

The elevator opened up onto her lit but empty floor.  Duo and the others had been the only Preventers allowed tonight; she had just been about to dismiss Eric when Kader called.  She had wanted no mistakes this time as they neared zero hour of the new operation.  The operation that was now unnecessary.

Thanks to Trowa Barton.

Une crossed the floor quickly.  Her door rattled on its hinges as she slammed it shut.

The city skyline provided more than enough light for her to see, so Une didn’t bother with the lights.  She hurried over to her desk.  Une ripped open the top left drawer and pulled out a thin ledger.  Every Preventer provided contact information, and all that information was in the database, but Une liked to keep the best and most useful numbers close at hand.

Trowa Barton’s wasn’t there.

Finding it wasn’t difficult, but it was frustrating.  Her laptop was not particularly slow, but after all of the surprises she had suffered in the last half hour, and with all of the questions she had, Une found herself wanting to hurl the  machine across her office.  She didn’t; Barton’s number would be even harder to find then. 

The five minutes felt more like hour, but she finally had his numbers.  Une leaned against desk as she waited for him to answer, glaring at the computer screen.

After six rings, it cut to voice mail.  Une swore as the mechanical female voice droned in her ear.  She redialed.

The third time she dialed, a male answered/.

“We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is not in service—”

“Damn you Barton!”

Une dialed the second number on his contact page.  The house phone rang five times before connecting.  Une barely restrained herself with the greatest of difficulty.

“Where is he?”

Heero’s answers were soft but clipped.  She had clearly woken him up.  “If he’s not in the building, then I don’t know.”

“Not Maxwell.  Barton.  Where is Trowa Barton?”

Heero was silent for a moment.  “He’s not here,” he said finally, sounding wide awake.

“He’s turned off his phone.  I need to find him.  Now.”

Heero didn’t speak for several seconds.  When he did, there was a strange shake in his voice.  “I don’t know where he is.”

Une felt a small burst of panic.  “Did he come home tonight?”

“He doesn’t on Fridays,” Heero said slowly.  Heero had to be feeling and feeding from her panic—or else he had made some kind of realization—because almost as soon as he was done speaking, he dropped the phone.  Une heard it hit the floor with a muffled clunk and then distant voices.

Une was still waiting, her nails digging shallow groves into her desk as she listened to the muffled panic on the other side of the phone, when the door opened.  She looked over her shoulder.  Duo stood in the doorway.  The light behind her put odd shadows on his face, making him look unusually, horribly upset.  He shut the door behind him softly before walking forward.

His right arm hung stiff at his side.  He clutched something tight in his fist.

On the phone, Heero started to swear.

“But it’s not possible,” Quatre said.  “It’s not.”

Duo stopped in front of her desk.

“I’ll kill him,” Heero growled.

“There’s got to be some mistake.”

Duo swallowed before dropping a Preventer badge on the desk.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter I actually really kind of love.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Fahd Kader gets a visitor, and Heero gets to speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: swearing, references to prior abuse,

For a criminal, Fahd thought he had been receiving quite a few visitors.  The Preventers had been the most frequent, especially during the first few days.  The visits, however, had tapered off early after his transition from holding cell to prison cell.  Their headquarters was almost three hours away, though, so Fahd understood the sudden drop off. 

The press was second.  Reporters, both the curious and the ravenous, had pressed in at the headquarters, hunkering down for a long siege, waiting to slipping through a hole in security.  After almost a week of silence, and then the move, they had started to slink away.  The weaker ones had slipped off during the transport.  A few of the stronger ones still lingered, but more and more were skulking away. 

Now only the lawyers kept up a constant (and irritating) visitation schedule.  The suits came early and stayed late, filling his time with endless droning.  So it was with an expected, heavy reluctance that he followed an officer out of his cell.  Fahd had briefly hoped that his explosion during their daily meeting yesterday had frightened them off.  Unfortunately, that apparently wasn’t the case.

The officer led him down the familiar bare hall, the one that was the exact same shade of drab beige as his prisoner’s uniform.  Fahd supposed there was supposed to be some sort of effect: sort of physical or mental change thanks to constant exposure to the mind-numbing, boring color.  A weakening when it came to his sense of self, perhaps, or a gradual increase in his sense of helplessness, hopelessness, or worthlessness.

Fahd felt none of that, but he had only been here for two weeks.  If he wasn’t executed early, he was sure he’d eventually feel some effect.  And if they replaced his constant headache from looking at the ugly color, Fahd might not actually mind the change.

The officer stopped just outside the door to the conference room.  Fahd took a deep but silent breath.  Patience.  He needed patience.  He needed to stay calm and not throw chairs at the imbeciles, even though nothing seemed to penetrate their thick skulls.  Fahd needed them to stay, because he did need them.  They had their uses, and they would listen to him.  They had to .  Eventually.

The officer opened the door.  Fahd stepped into the conference room.  He nearly jumped when the door closed behind him too soon.

Fahd was not allowed to open or close doors himself: a regulation that he found easy to accept.  He had, after all, spent most of his childhood and adolescence surrounded by servants and a father who thought opening any door but the bedroom’s was a chore fit for lesser beings.  Besides, opening a door while handcuffed was troublesome.  Fahd would know; he watched people try it. 

But Fahd was also not allowed to be alone when outside of his cell.  That was a more difficult adjustment.  He always had a guard; sometimes, he had half-a-dozen.  They breathed down his neck as they escorted and monitored him during meals and showers and irritating meetings with irritating lawyers.  Fahd was sure that the prison would have a guard to watch him while he slept if they had they had the manpower. 

Guards intruded on every aspect of his life.  This one had just shut him into the conference room alone.

Even though 01 was standing on the other side of the heavy, metal table, Fahd wasn’t sure why that had happened.

“There is supposed to be a lawyer here,” Fahd said slowly. 

Fahd knew 01 mostly through his research.  So he was aware that a scowl was more or less 01’s default expression.  It did, however, seem unusually heavy today.  01 clearly wasn’t happy about being here, or else he liked the idea of lawyers even less than Fahd.

“Call them,” he said, voice surprisingly even. 

Fahd knew all of the protocols and the legal ramifications that came with the lack of them.  He knew that his lawyers would have a field day when they learned that a Preventer had attempted to interview/interrogate him without representation present.  He also knew the stroke they’d have if they learned Fahd knowingly and willfully waived that representation.  Fahd was tempted, though.  01 was here for a reason, and Fahd knew that if a lawyer came into it, that reason would change.  It would change into something mundane, like additional statements or clarification on his many “illegal activities.”  01 was here for a reason—a very good, very interesting reason, if his expression was any sort of judge. 

Fahd was curious, and he did admittedly stupid things sometimes when he was curious.

“That won’t be necessary,” Fahd said.

01 blinked once, slowly.  “You are aware—”

“I’m not going to scream ‘coercion,’ if that’s your concern, Heero Yuy.”

01’s eyes narrowed.  Obviously, he didn’t trust Fahd not to do exactly that.  In the former pilot’s defense, Fahd _was_ considering it but he planned to wait until the end of the meeting before making that decision.  After a long, tense moment of silence, 01 nodded shortly.

Fahd moved towards a chair on his side of the table.  “Are you one of the arresting officers now, Heero Yuy?”

01’s eyebrows rose a fraction.  _Not expecting that._ “No.”

“Is it customary for Preventers to assign visitation to unrelated operatives?  My apologies, it must have taken you quite a while to get up to speed.  My statement alone probably took an hour—”

“I’m not here about your arrest.”

Fahd paused, bound hands gripping the back of the chair.  He frowned.  He was used to seeing 01 in pictures, with his well-worn jeans and spandex and tank tops.  None of which was standard wear for a Preventer, and Fahd would know.  He had seen 03 in his uniform often enough.  01 was visiting him as in a less-than-official capacity.  01 was visiting as a civilian.

“This meeting’s going to be short, then.  There’s not much else I can give the Preventers.  You’ve already arrested Reid.  There are no other leaks—”

01 tensed.  It was a small subtle change: the way his already tight jaw tightened and Fahd thought he heard the brief grinding of teeth; the way 01’s hands momentary twisted the back of the chair he had been preparing to pull out.  Fahd knew from his research that 01’s physical strength bordered on freakish.  There had been some alterations of some kind done to the former pilot.  With a little more force, Fahd didn’t doubt that 01 could break the metal chair.  Fahd felt a momentary clenching in his stomach.  The heavy table between them didn’t seem like enough suddenly.

“—that are attached to me anyway.”

“He ran.”

“He is no longer in my employ.  You can’t hold me responsible for Reid’s stupidity—”

“Not Reid.  Trowa.”  Despite the tension, 01’s voice was completely flat.

Fahd gripped the back of his chair.  He was angry, that was all.  He was angry that 03 managed to escape. And maybe Fahd would admit that he was a little surprised.  The Preventers had to be hailing 03 as a hero.  Heroes didn’t run, and 03 couldn’t be _that_ uncomfortable with the spotlight.  Fahd was angry, and maybe he was a little surprised.  He certainly wasn’t confused, or even worse concerned.  Fahd didn’t really care that 03 ran.  He didn’t care about the implications.

“When,” he asked.

“After your arrest.”

Fahd frowned.  “That’s two weeks ago.

“It is.”  A short, uncomfortable silence stretched between them.  It finally clicked.

“You can’t find him,” Fahd said.

The right side of 01’s mouth twitched.

“Isn’t this one of your specialties?”

The left side of 01’s body twitched, starting at the knee which suddenly locked.  When he spoke, 01’s voice was slightly tense.  “Trowa was the infiltrator.”

“So you never once broke a system?  Stole or rerouted data?  Assumed a false identity?  You have to at least know how it’s done.”

01 was the best of the pilots, according to Fahd’s research.  He had the largest skill set, and managed at least “impressive” in everything from explosives to espionage.  He had piloted the most models of mobile suits with lethal efficiency.  He had survived the most explosions.  He had disappeared into the most places (although not for very long.  03 had the record for longest infiltration).  And 01 had that impossible control over himself.   Absolutely nothing deterred him from his mission. 

Except, perhaps, a cross-examination from a terrorist.  Fahd watched the fingers on 01’s right hand twitch towards his hip.  01 was ambidextrous; he was accurate with either hand to within a tenth of a percent.  Fahd should have been concerned.  He should have stopped, but he didn’t.  Fahd couldn’t.  The pilots were fascinating.  Watching that legendary control, that impenetrable calm, slip was fascinating.  And knowing that it was because he was somehow pushing 01’s buttons was dangerously satisfying.

“Trowa is excellent,” 01 said slowly.  “You saw a fucked-up sting.  You have no idea how good he is.” 

“And you do.  You should have cut him off.”

01’s mouth worked into an irritated line.  “You try cutting off a spy that had more than a week to plan.”

“You think I know something,” Fahd decided finally.  01 blinked once.  Black fury rolled briefly over his face.  He blinked again and it was gone.  01’s head tilted slightly to the side.  So that was it.  Grinding his teeth, Fahd leaned over the back of his chair.  “Has my arrest somehow escaped your attention?” 

01 had the decency to flush. 

“Perhaps you’re still unaware of some of the finer details, like how Barton was holding my advisor at gunpoint?  That he shot him?” 

01’s eyes narrowed.

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear, Heero Yuy,” Fahd growled.  “Trowa Barton was _never_ in my pocket.  He was in my _bed,_ and a bed warmer, no matter how good, is never going to be more important than Nizar.  I’m going to kill him for the four bullets he put in Nizar—” 

Fahd heard the sharp snap and thought, for a moment, that he had been shot.  A silencer and a particular caliber bullet could make a sound like that.  He hadn’t seen the gun, of course, and was quite sure the prison refused access to any civilian or outside officer who carried one.  But 01 was 01; he probably stashed it someplace. 

He should have felt pain by now, though, if he had been shot.  And 01 wasn’t even looking at him.  He was look at his cellphone.  His thumb moved quickly and harshly over the keypad.  Fahd blinked when the former pilot flung it onto the table.  It spun sharply across the metal.  Fahd caught it before it skidded off the edge, and only when he had it in his hands did he consider possible bombs.  _Nizar would be furious at me._

Forcing down a flinch, Fahd glanced down at the phone.  The camera roll was on display.  The first picture was grey and grainy, almost like it was from a security feed.  So was the second, and then the third.  Fahd scrolled through the album. 

“What is this?”

“Security photos from Darlian Memorial.  It’s a private hospital, opened up about eight months ago.  Bill was mostly footed by Relena Peacecraft, in memory of her father.  It’s the most discreet hospital within fifty miles.”

Yes, it did look like a hospital room, now that he cared to think about it.  There was even a man in the bed, occasionally surrounded by doctors, always hooked up to machines. 

Fahd’s chest tightened.  “How old are these?”

“The newest is less than twenty-four hours, the oldest is seventy-two.  He was admitted last Monday, three days after the shooting.  He was in surgery within the hour.”

“For?”

“Shattered kneecaps and a busted hand.  Someone tried improvised surgery.  Their work on his hand was adequate.  Their knee work was atrocious.”

“How bad is it?”

“A young man would need total reconstruction and rehab for at least a year.  Considering his age, the surgeons are thinking of cutting corners.”

Nizar would _love_ that.  “Is he alright?”

“Well enough to threaten surgeons with a trip out of the window if they leave him as an invalid.”

Fahd held the phone in his hands.  He scrolled slowly back and forth through the album.  He had assumed Nizar was dead, that 03 had shot him in the head not even five minutes after Fahd had left.  It was the only way Fahd could explain his lawyers’ insistence on finding loopholes and exit strategies instead of obeying Fahd’s very simple instructions.  Fahd had wanted Nizar found.  Nothing else was going to matter until he knew where Nizar, or his body, was. 

He had always assumed that their complete disregard for his orders had been a sign that his lawyers had found Nizar’s body and didn’t know how to tell him.  Fahd hadn’t actually thought they weren’t even looking. 

“I can arrange a phone call,” 01 said. 

Fahd could almost hear the scolding.  _“Idiot.  What part of ‘I’m not worth this’ did you not understand?  How many times did I have to explain this to you?  The individual never matters!  There are plenty of half-decent idiots who can play advisor for a few months.  Pick one, just don’t play with the Preventers.  Don’t give them **anything**.  They’re not like the others.  They **can** put us down.  Don’t help them do it.” _

It was there, quite clear in his head, but it had none of the nuances that made a scolding from Nizar either amusing or eye-opening.  The intonation was all wrong.  There was no low, extended hiss at the end of his words.  And the low quaver Nizar’s voice adopted when he worked himself into a fury was missing.  Fahd knew what he would say; but he simply wasn’t good enough to imagine it in all its proper strength and passion.

Fahd didn’t think, however, he knew enough about 03’s sudden disappearance to risk getting his hopes up.

“An exchange, then,” Fahd said, setting the phone down on the table.  “I don’t know what you want.  Barton was never one of mine.”

“I know that.”

The statement itself wasn’t all that surprising, but the there was an emphasis that made it interesting.  “I” had barely been an octave above the other monotone syllables.  But 01 had filled it with momentary but noticeable bitterness.  Fahd wondered about it for a second.

_Of course._  As their commander had said, half a dozen organizations _had_ been fighting for his arrest for months.  Some for years.  They had launched dozens of operations; every single one had been a failure, some minor and some spectacular.  And throughout it all, Fahd had stayed in the public eye and it had adored him.  He laughed and smiled and flattered and pouted and the people ate it up.  His pursuers must have hated him.  .

So of course, they weren’t actually going to believe him when they caught him.

Fahd wondered if Reid had come up with the idea on his own.  He might have, but Fahd thought it was more likely that he had caught whispers of 03’s disappearance.  Reid probably thought it would give him an edge.  The Preventers might have given the idea to him.  They might have “connected the dots” and offered some leniency in exchange for information on the rat still at large.  And Reid, the imbecile that he was, probably pounced on it.  He could be clever when his ass was on the line.

How many lies did that red-haired waste of skin spin, and how many did the Preventers swallow?  _Enough to yank 01 off the case._

The Preventers knew about the war.  At the very least, they knew that four of the five pilots were living together.  They had to see that closeness, that camaraderie, as dangerous.  They saw 01 (and 02, maybe even 05) as susceptible to influence.  No one wanted clean operatives aiding or abetting a rogue agent.  No one wanted to risk clean agents joining him

The Preventers must have pulled him off and put someone else in charge of the hunt.  People who didn’t have the right skills—who didn’t know 03’s background and abilities.  They couldn’t have lasted a week.  They probably left behind an impossible mess. 

No wonder 01 was frustrated.

Fahd tilted his head to the side.  “What exactly are you looking for, Heero Yuy?”

“Information.”

“Barton didn’t tell me he planned on running, and he certainly didn’t do any planning at my place.”

“You know things,” 01 said, slow and begrudgingly.  “You spent the most time with him, even if it was extortion.”

“Maybe I do, but it might be worthless.”

“At this point, nothing is worthless.”

Fahd couldn’t stop himself from smiling.  “Is that so?  What’s his favorite color?”

01’s face blanked before furrowing with confusion.  “Excuse?”

“Color.  What is Barton’s favorite color?”

“Green,” he answered, brow knit in irritation.

“Actually it’s burgundy, but green is in the top five.”  Fahd, ignoring 01’s momentary grinding of his teeth, pulled the chair out with both hands.   “Does he prefer bright or dark colors?”

“Dark.”

Fahd eased himself into the chair.  “Good, but that one was easy.  Who is his favorite composer?”

“Enough.”

“You don’t seem very familiar with the classics, so I’ll give a choice: Bach or Vivaldi?”

“Are you done, Kader?”

“Are you going to answer, Yuy?”

“Vivaldi.”

“You guessed.”

“Is there a point to this?”

Fahd rested his elbows on the table as comfortably as the handcuffs allowed.  “I’m not stupid, Heero Yuy.  Barton is gone, you, for whatever reason, can’t follow him by yourself.  So you’re looking for something.  You’re looking for help: little _personal_ touches that can tell where he might have run off to.  And you’re assuming that because I had him for five months, I know them.  And you’re right.  I made it my business.”  Fahd smiled behind his fingers.  “My question is, did anyone else?  So, what’s his favorite food?”

01 was silent for several long seconds.  His jaw and throat worked slowly.  His fingers curled and loosened.  Finally, he let out a hard huff and yanked the chair out from under the table.

“Spinach wrap,” he said, sitting down and folding his arms. “With lettuce, tomato, mozzarella, and Portobello mushrooms.”

Fahd arched an eyebrow.  _That answers that, then._

*-----*-----*

The only thing stopping Heero from turning around was knowing that he would never find Trowa if he got arrested.  And he would get arrested.  Seven cameras had seen him walk in and out of the high security prison, three of which got more-than-decent shots of his face.  Those same three cameras were all on the fastest route to Kader’s cell, and Heero had neither a hood nor a change of clothes. 

Heero could always jam the security system; dismantle it entirely if he absolutely had to.  Remotely, it would take less than an hour.  Slipping past the prison’s mediocre watch would be easy.  He would get to Kader in under ten minutes.

The problem was that Heero was a mercenary, not an assassin.  Fast and efficient, but often noisy and messy.  Of course, he _could_ be clean.  Heero had knives and silencers.  He could aim for the body parts best suited for a quick and clean kill.  Right now, though, Heero wanted it to be messy.  He wanted it to be loud.  So unless those cells had soundproofing, camera system or no camera system, the entire prison was going to know when Fahd Kader was dead.  And then Heero would have to kill the guards. 

He didn’t _want_ to kill the guards, but Heero did want to kill Kader.  A very slow, noisy, messy kill.  And the only thing stopping him was Trowa.

Heero nearly snapped his key in half when he ripped it out of the ignition. 

He tossed the mangled key onto the dash and sank back into the driver’s seat.  Heero shifted, moving his knees as close to shoulder’s-width apart as the cramped seat allowed.  Gripping them, Heero shut his eyes and breathed.  Two sharp breaths in, hold the third, toss it out like a curse.  Repeat.  After twelfth repetition, he could almost get that third breath to ease past his lips.  By the eighteenth, his pulse started to drop.   

Heero didn’t like coming home angry; he didn’t like admitting he had lost control, and he liked infecting the house with emotional toxins even less.  While Quatre, with his heightened empathy, was the only one to ever suffer physically, he would be a stupid to think that it didn’t affect everyone.  His anger, raw and powerful because of the leash he usually choked it with, always raised Duo’s defenses.  It made his lover wary, and then combative, as it backed him into uncomfortable mental corners.  Even Trowa stiffened in the face of it, bringing his limbs oh-so-slightly closer to protect his core, holding his breath for a barely noticeable second as he decided between fight or flee. 

Heero choked on the breath he was holding. 

When he had finished coughing, Heero glanced up at the house.  It looked odd in the early evening.  Dabs of sunset broke through the overcast cloud that had been clinging for the past week, giving off just enough light to make the porch light unnecessary.  Most of the curtains were drawn, however, and no light made the gray fabric warm.  It looked lonely.

Uncomfortable being an acceptable emotional state, Heero got out of the car.  He locked the door out of habit and walked through the space between his and Quatre’s car.  He didn’t try to stop himself from shifting slightly to the left to avoid the kickstand that wasn’t there.

Now even more distracted, Heero opened the door and was unable to stop himself from stumbling back as the smell rolled over him.  It took him three seconds to identify it, and then he let out a soft sigh.  Slow-cooked beef and vegetables.  He hadn’t realized how much he wanted it until right then.   

He at least managed to keep his voice even.  “Hey.”

There was a clatter from the kitchen.  Quatre poked his head around the short divide that separated the small dining from the living room.  He stared at the shadowy walls almost curiously before looking at him.

“You’re back.”

Heero nodded as he shut the door.  Duo’s head poked out above Quatre’s.

“We thought you’d go back.”

“Was going to,” he said while shrugging out of his denim coat.  “Une told me not to bother.”

Heero was sure the order had less to do with the lack of sleep, the time it took to get back to headquarters, and what little work he could manage in a few hours, and everything to do with her not wanting him to break anything—or anyone—by accident.  He had only recently stopped snapping pens whenever anyone mentioned Kader name in his presence.  

Heero caught the look they shared as he hung up his coat.  Wanting to put the conversation off as long as possible—or until he could answering without swearing—he voiced some of his surprise.  “Something smells good.”

“Pot roast,” Quatre said with a smile, slipping away from the wall to turn on the living room lights.  “I thought it be a nice surprise.”

Heero let out a low hum.

“And I made lemon chicken for me.  God knows I’m not wasting a perfectly good pot roast again.”

In his defense, Heero had felt bad about wasting Quatre’s time, and a delicious pot roast.  A point, however, needed to be made.  Stubbornness almost always worked.

“As long as you eat.”

Quatre huffed softly.  “I was going to eat then, too.”

“You were going to have leftovers while Duo and I ate.”

“There’s nothing long with leftovers.”

“There is when you spend five hours making dinner for the rest of ua.”

“Technically it’s two because it spends three hours stewing in its own juices, and I did not.  Trowa was going to have leftovers too.”

And as it always happened whenever they accidentally mentioned Trowa—which happened a lot more than Heero thought it would—an awkward silence swept in and crushed the conversation.

Duo salvaged it after only a couple of minutes of shuffling and swallowing.  “This one’s got to stew for four hours, it’s so big.  So you’re going to have to wait another hour.”

“That’s fine,” Heero said slowly.

“I thought,” Quatre started.  He looked at the lamp switch under his hand until he got his usual lilt back.  “You’d be longer.  I was hoping it’d be a surprise.”

“It’s still a surprise.”

Quatre smiled.  Only a bit of it was faked.

“Any particular reason for it,” Heero asked as he headed for the dining room.  Quatre shrugged.

“Thought it’d be a nice treat.  And I had the time.”

Heero didn’t doubt that.  Even with Kader imprisoned, Quatre was still under heavy protection.  There were too many people unaccounted for: people with the means and motives.  They couldn’t let Quatre out yet. 

If the situation was different, Heero thought Quatre would actually enjoy all of the restrictions on his movements.  Witness protection was an excellent excuse for missing work. 

Today was actually the first day in two weeks Quatre had stayed home under the protective order, with Duo as his guard.  Recently, he had been coming to the office every day, where he was comfortably “sequestered” in one of the conferences rooms.  He was allowed “books” and the “occasional project” for “Miss Relena.”

He had plenty of his own projects, however, to occupy his time in the conference room.  Quatre’s sources—even Rashi’ds—were turning up nothing, too. 

Heero wondered if Quatre missed the domesticity.  These two weeks had pretty much shattered their long-established routine.  There were no quiet meals or chores with mild teasing.  Habit and routine had fallen to the wayside.  Quatre spent just as many hours at the Preventers Headquarters as they did.  He sat at a computer, talking on a phone or looking at a long list of flights, for just as long as Heero did. 

Heero wondered if this sudden surprise was a way for Quatre to stave off the worst of the anxiety.  Or did he think that going back to it, even for a moment, would somehow fix everything.

He hoped not.  It was an understandable but rather dangerous temptation.

Still, one good thing might come out of a brief return to the old routine.  “Tell me we’re doing laundry this weekend.”

Duo looked at him, scratching the back of his neck.  “We can?  We’re going in tomorrow, but I can be home on Sunday.  I think.”

“If you make it an issue, we can all be home Sunday.  You can’t exactly leave me alone.”

“Une’ll love that,” Duo snorted.

“She’s going to have to.  I need clothes.”

“Really,” Duo smirked.  “I could have sworn you were wearing some.”

“Work clothes.  Or else the next time we have to talk to him, you can go in plainclothes.”

Duo frowned slightly.  “I thought Une told them you were coming.”

She had.  The warden, a former general named Andrews who still had enough muscle and ferocity underneath the fat and wrinkles to be momentarily formidable, had greeted him at one o’clock exactly.  That had not, however, spared him the arrogance and blatant curiosity of the prison’s secretary.

“The secretary didn’t take a good look at the file,” he said.

Quatre, who had made his way back into the kitchen, looked up from the cutting board.  “How did it go?”

“She actually asked to see my badge.  I admit, that was slightly more tolerable than when she thought I was some school boy visiting family.”

Duo snorted as he tried not to laugh.  Quatre smiled faintly over his shoulder.

“I meant the meeting. 

Heero had opened up the possibility of the conversation by even mentioning the prison, so he couldn’t do more than shrug stiffly as the irritation prickled.  Quatre nodded once before turning away.

He had made three cuts before speaking again.  “Did you learn anything?”

Heero had learned plenty.  First and foremost, not taking his gun had been a very good idea.  Or a very bad one, depending on how he looked at it.  For hate him as Heero might, Kader had given him some things to work with.  _The bastard._

“It’s possible.  It’s also possible that Kader’s a lying asshole.  I’ll have to wait and see.”

Duo, mouth opened slightly, shifted away from the table.  Quatre actually put the knife down for a moment.  Heero swore just about as often as he did.  Or maybe it was the way Heero gripped the table, or how the rage colored his voice, that surprised them.  Heero released the wood and took two quick breaths.  Duo shifted further away. 

“It has to help,” Quatre said, voice rising slightly as he returned to his cutting.  Heero closed his eyes; the breathing wasn’t helping.  “Doesn’t it?” 

“Not necessarily,” he said through grit teeth.  There was a faint drumming.  Heero opened an eye and watched Duo worry his fingers against the back of a chair. 

“Then what was the point?”

Heero found himself trying to breathe with the fast staccato of Duo’s fingers.  His pulse skyrocketed.  He closed his eyes again.

“What was the point,” Quatre demanded.  Heero ground his teeth against the anger—his anger—in Quatre’s voice.  Quatre was feeding off him, as the empathetic sometimes did.  It was uncomfortable to hear.  “You said he had to know something, that Trowa couldn’t just disappear—”

“Well, of course he can’t!” 

The explosion was better than any breathing exercise.  Heero’s anger retreated back to where it belonged.  He opened his eyes and looked at Duo.  He had been avoiding that word for this very reason; he had forgotten to warn Quatre about it.

Duo leaned over the chair, gripping the back of i hard enough to bruise.  “People don’t disappear,” he snarled.  “They go places.  They run,” His violet eyes, wide with rage, misted over.  There was no way to bring him back from whatever memories he was visiting.  They would have to wait it out.  “They get kidnapped, they get hurt, they get killed, but they don’t disappear.   They show up in a ditch somewhere six months later but they show up.  No one fucking disappears!”

There was a long, ringing silence.  By the time Duo managed to take a couple of breathes, shuddering as he gulped down much needed air, Quatre’s face had broken from its pale, startled expression.  Quatre shuddered once as he lapped up the excess agony.  He dropped the knife to the floor and hurried upstairs. 

Duo seemed calm, but Heero wasn’t fooled.   Duo’s eyes were still clouded and distant as he struggled to pull himself back up from whatever misery he normally kept safely hidden.  Heero waited until he had blinked some of violet back into his eyes before frowning.

 

Duo had a strong “pack” mentality.  It was how understood and processed and thrived among people.  Heero knew that Duo had always considered Trowa one of “them;” the teasing and the complaints and the railing came part-and-parcel with being close to him.  Trowa’s disappearance had hurt Duo deeply. More deeply than anyone, probably, because Duo “knew” what people meant when they murmured, or simpered, that someone had “disappeared.”

“Duo,” he said quietly.

Duo looked at him for nearly a minute before he actually saw him.  He blinked, a single tear dripping down his face, before fully coming back.  Wiping his cheek on his sleeve, Duo looked around.  His eyes caught the knife on the floor, and the lack of Quatre in the kitchen.  His brow furrowed for a second. 

“Shit.”

“He’s upstairs,” Heero said.

Duo tripped in his haste, catching himself on the bottom stair before bounding up them.  Halfway to the second floor, he leapt back down.  He ran to Heero, stopping just shy of his feet.

And then, with a grace and slowness that still surprised Heero some days, Duo held him.  Duo wrapped his arms tightly about his waist and shoulders and pulled him flush against his chest.  His fingers ran up the side of his neck, into his hair, and scratched with a light but constant pressure.  Heero leaned into the pressure until his head rested lightly against Duo’s, their temples meeting.  Heero closed his eyes as he felt the steady beat of Duo’s pulse.

Heero basked in the affection for a moment before stepping carefully out of the embrace.  Duo’s arms slipped to his sides.  He smiled gently and caught Heero’s fingers.  Heero returned the small squeeze before going to the kitchen.  Behind him, Duo’s footsteps faded as he hurried upstairs.

He still wasn’t sure, as he picked up the knife and replaced it on the cutting board, why Duo insisted on the displays.  He appreciated them, of course, but they were unnecessary.  Heero wasn’t jealous.  In many ways, he was thankful for Duo and Quatre’s relationship.  It spared him from trying (and failing) to fulfill certain needs.  Quatre could stand the constant energy, the constant need for physical and verbal contact.  Quatre thrived on it.  Heero, however, needed silence and stillness at least on occasion.  He needed to indulge in the physical presence without the constant need for petting or conversation.

He had hoped that—  Well.  He had hoped, but Heero was used to disappointment.

But he wasn’t jealous.  He didn’t need reminders of the permanency of their relationship every time Duo went to Quatre for physical or emotional reasons.  He didn’t feel threatened.  Even if he did, it would have been Heero’s fault.  He would have only himself to blame for jealousy.  After all, Duo hadn’t  been the one to moan Trowa’s name in bed and start this whole arrangement. 

It hadn’t been one of Heero’s better moments.

Duo had taken the indiscretion well, which had done nothing for Heero’s embarrassment, or the momentary burst of fear.  Heero’s understanding of relationships was scanty at best, but he had been sure that he had made some irreparable error that was going to end their budding relationship very quickly and permanently. 

Duo, however, was very good with people and even better with relationships (having been in several, of a multitude of different intimacies and connections).  Fantasizing, he said, was perfectly normal.  People did it all the time, even when they were with loved ones.  Most of them, however, tried not to mention it around their partners, especially in bed.  It was a skill Heero could learn.  And learn it he did.

That didn’t _stop_ the fantasies.

Heero had thought mental control would at the very least change them.  He thought it would color them, make them less likely to occur because of negative association.  It was irritating to have to think so hard during sex.  It was irritating to feel so distracted when he was with Duo.  But they didn’t stop.  Heero learned not to call the wrong name, but Trowa somehow still managed to intrude on more than one occasion.  Worse, Trowa started flitting into his thoughts when he wasn’t with Duo.

That had been concerning, since most of Heero’s private thoughts centered on Duo.  Trowa had only been that prominent in the war.  It had tapered off, though, when their relationship started.  And then one day, Trowa somehow slipped back into his thoughts.  Heero blamed the move.  Trowa’s closer proximity—much closer, he slept in the room beneath him—was influencing him, reminding him what had originally been a physical phenomenon based on need and aesthetics.  He hadn’t known Duo well when the need for release had first gotten to be too much.  He had known Trowa.  He had watched Trowa every day for nearly a month.  He had seen Trowa move about the trailer with oddly refined grace inappropriate in a mercenary.  He had watched him trained outside, graceful but strong, lethal and light.  He watched Trowa eat little, say less, and change Heero’s bandages with astounding care.   

Somewhere during all of that, Heero had decided that Trowa was beautiful. 

Beautiful or not, however, Trowa was distracting, which had become a problem.  Heero couldn’t ask Trowa to leave just because he couldn’t control his own imagination.  Not only would it have been unfair, the confession would have been horribly embarrassing.  So Heero did what he always did: he mastered himself.

And when that had failed, he researched. 

There, in the myriad of idiocy that was the internet, Heero had found a curious answer buried underneath the pornography and religious zealotry (which made even less sense than the porn because if Hell was underground, where there was less air, then how could the fire that was going to burn him for all eternity even be maintained?).  He had never heard of polyamory before, which was not surprising considering his lack of experience with relationships.  Unfortunately, it seemed just as complicated, if not more so, than monogamy which he had assumed was the accepted norm.

He quickly stopped trying to understand the minutia—closed versus opened, triads and quads and V’s, the household, the harem, unicorn hunters and cowgirls—and focused on the fact that some people had relationships with more than one person, and as long as everyone knew, it was acceptable. 

As long as Duo knew—and preferably agreed—it was okay.  Because Heero had long since realized, in the hours he spent at his computer scrolling through essays and forums that were occasionally excellent but usually mind-numbing, that Trowa was much more than sexual fantasy and much less than a usurper.  That for all the times he dwelled on the vividness of his fantasies, he still enjoyed and yearned and needed Duo.  Duo still gave him stability and comfort he could get nowhere else.  That he wanted from no one else.  The things Duo gave to him were only his to give; likewise, the things Heero wanted from Trowa, only Trowa could give.

It had been a comforting but uncomfortable revelation.  Now he had to _tell_ Duo.  

Which he did, in the only way Heero knew how: a concise report.  Duo had been familiar with the practice for years.  He actually laughed. 

But after that, they talked.  Or rather Duo talked.  Constantly.  Heero absorbed the information, occasionally making a comment and then waiting for feedback.  The conversation lasted for weeks, with plenty of day-long pauses as Heero organized his thoughts into enough coherency to explain his feelings.  Duo had insisted that that was necessary.  Nothing could go forward if Heero wasn’t totally honest with him and with himself.   

When Heero was honest with himself, he realized that he loved Duo.  He loved Duo to the point where he would do stupid, unnecessary things to protect him or make him happy.  When he was honest with himself, he realized he was very fond of Quatre.  He genuinely enjoyed the closeness Duo and Quatre shared.  He enjoyed the occasional intimacy between the two of them because Heero did need physical connection just like they did (just not as often).  When he was honest with himself, Heero realized that he wanted Trowa.  Distant, intriguing Trowa.  He wanted the Trowa from his fantasies, warm and open, and the Trowa who sat across from at the table, closed but comfortable.  Heero wanted to him in a way that was different but equal to Quatre’s friendship and Duo’s love. 

Heero wanted Trowa to want him.

And now Trowa was gone. 

Heero glanced at the clock.  It had been fifteen minutes, but there were no footsteps upstairs.  They had to be in one of the rooms, most likely Quatre’s.  That was usually his safe space his empathy was out of control.  They would probably be there for a while. 

Heero checked to make sure everything that could boil over or burn was either on low or off before turning off the kitchen light and heading for Trowa’s bedroom.

He hadn’t gone in since that first night, when he had searched it for signs that Trowa had fled.  He suspected that Quatre came in regularly, and that Duo had been there at least twice.  They touched nothing, however, as if Trowa’s absence was temporary and he would notice the minutest change.

Heero, however, sat down on the end of the bed after shutting the door. 

He had never spent much time in Trowa’s room, knowing how much the other had valued his privacy.  But now as he sat on the red—the _burgundy_ —comforter, he noticed the small touches Kader had already known.  He saw the carpentry and horticulture books that took up an entire row of his short bookshelf, and the nature albums that took up half of the one beneath that.  He saw the armchair in the corner with its stiff cushion and the squished, flattened pillows piled up in the corner of the deep window sill.  He saw the piles of music sheets, perfectly arranged, folded and creased at the corners.

Heero rose and went to the music-covered desk.  On top of a small pile of Vivaldi’s “Winter” was a wooden case.  Heero picked it up and felt the smooth, honey-colored surface before opening it.  Trowa’s flute lay on a thin bed of red satin inside of it. 

The black plastic case with the felt lining was in the desk.

Heero closed the case and set it down carefully.  He left the bedroom, closing the door behind him.  In the living room, Heero dug his laptop out of his bag and sat down on the couch.  He had some time before Duo and Quatre came back down for dinner (possibly breakfast), and a long list of coastal towns to research.

And a warrant to write. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting through these edits much faster.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tracey moves to Ocean City, New Jersey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: new identity (I tried to make pronouns as clear as possible)

 

“I know it’s not much to look at, Mr. Reynolds, but it’s very sturdy.  Never had any major problems." 

Trowa wasn’t listening.  He hadn’t been listening since he had walked into the landlord’s office and shaken hands with the heavy-set, balding, overly-enthusiastic man.  Of course, he made obvious signs of attention as they moved from the small office to the stairs and finally to the apartment: small gestures of the head, singular answers and some mild interest in the physical nuances the landlord pointed out.  None of that took any significant effort.  If the landlord decided to ask him about something, though, Trowa would be in trouble.               

But the landlord seemed too excited about having a prospective tenant to pay much attention to Trowa’s inattention.  That suited Trowa just fine, since he needed most of his mental energy to recite Tracey Reynold’s elaborate narrative.  Again.              

Trowa normally gave himself at least a week of serious study before adopting a persona because Trowa was _thorough._  He’d recite extended, detailed histories at least twice a day.  He’d undergo short, daily sessions where he crafted and mastered the new identity’s facial expression, body movement, stature, and tone.  Identity was a difficult process.  One slip could undo months of work.  Trowa never slipped. 

Tracey Reynolds, however, hadn’t gotten a week.  He hadn’t even gotten a day.  Tracey had gotten the thirty seconds Richards had waited for the name he would print on Trowa’s new identification papers. And then Tracey had gotten the long run from the penthouse to Ocean City, New Jersey.  A life and all of his manners, voice and gestures had been crafted haphazardly during long stretches of hitch-hiking, cheap motel stays, and red-eye flights.  

It was exhausting, so Trowa tried very hard not to get too irritated when the unfamiliar name made his brain stall for a second. 

Trowa, feigning interest under the excited eyes of the landlord, moved slowly around the small apartment.  He missed his old gait, but Tracey Reynolds didn’t need an elegant stride.  Tracey needed small, slightly twitchy steps: hesitant, one foot barely clearing the other.  He needed to look like he was constantly on the verge of falling.  And he needed to look like he trusted that gait, as if it _had_ protected him more times than failed him when he lived at home.

In short, Tracey needed to look pathetic.

Tracey would notice the water stains on the floor and upper corners of the faded walls.  He’d notice the slightly rotted and chewed look of the baseboards and the feet of the furniture.  He’d notice the sharp creak of the floorboards.  None of it, however, held any particular meaning for him.  Or concern.  The old rancher he had grown up in had had the same, and more, and never fallen.  Normal wear-and-tear in Tracey’s mind.  So Trowa turned as he rounded the small, worn dinette a second time.  His mouth twitched into a small, lopsided smile.

“No problems,” he asked.  Tracey’s voice was a little high for a boy’s, with a waver that could be either natural or nurtured.  The effect was almost immediate; the landlord, leaning against the doorframe, flushed a faint, embarrassed pink and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Small things, really.  There were some leaks last year after some heavy rain but those were patched up.  And we had an infestation years ago, but that hit the building. Whole thing was gassed.  Made some new rules and never had critters since.  And the floors have always creaked.  Not much you can do about that.”

Trowa glanced at the walls and rocked slowly on his feet, a thoughtful gesture while he tested the wood for fatal dipping.  When he found none, he gave an easy shrug and said, “Can’t help stuff like that.”

“Nope.  Can’t control nature.”

Trowa nodded, still looking around the apartment with Tracey’s eyes.  “It’s nice,” he said slowly.  “Really nice, for what you’re asking.  I’d thought it be more expensive.  You know.  Furnished and all.”

The landlord’s flush turned a few shades darker.  “Oh, that.  Yeah, well, it all belonged to the previous tenant—” 

“And what?  They just didn’t want it anymore?”

“Not exactly.  She died.”

Trowa looked around at the apartment and the furnishings again.  So _that_ was why a furnished 2LK was going for less than five-hundred American.

“Oh.”

“Nothing unusual.  Angie was in her eighties.  Heart just gave out.  Problem was that she didn’t have many people.  Only child, no kids, husband long gone.  Just a couple of friends, and they didn’t want half the stuff here.”

“Like a piano?”

Trowa had been waiting for a slightly-less blatant way to address the upright standing against the wall between the balcony and the end of the couch.  And since Trowa assumed that most people wouldn’t be exactly pleased at finding a piano in their prospective apartment, Trowa didn’t mind the slight sharpness that accidentally slipped into Tracey’s mild tone. 

The landlord smiled almost affectionately at the instrument.  “You could hear her playing all the way downstairs.  Angie used to do concerts, you know, back in the day.  I heard her play a couple of times when I was a kid, on the radio.  She moved in about ten years ago.  Got that piano the very first week.  She played it every day, right up until the day she died.  Kept her fingers and mind sharp when everything else started falling apart.”

Trowa felt a faint stirring of appreciation that was entirely foreign to Tracey, who liked music with the vague, begrudging appreciation of someone who had been forced to play an instrument in elementary school. 

“She gave lessons,” the landlord continued.  “Kids from all over town walked here every day after school.  Couple of my nieces and nephews, and my eldest grandson, got them too.  I took the fees out her rent, and a couple of extra bucks just because.  My eldest niece, Rach, she loves the piano.  Wants to be in an orchestra someday.  She nearly died when she found out Angie played Carnegie regularly.  Angie made her so damn happy.”

“Sounds like a nice lady.”

“Great lady.  Brilliant and sweet, and nobody was around when she died.  We didn’t even know until her first lesson that day came down to my office to ask if she’d gone out or something.”

“Oh.”

“Coroner said it was quick and she probably didn’t feel much.  As if you can’t feel your own heart stopping.  It was probably awful.”

The landlord ran a hand over the back of his neck, as if he only just realized he had stumbled into an uncomfortable topic.  “We can get it removed, if you want.  It won’t take more than a week to get some movers or guys from sanitation.”

Tracey had no real interest in playing music, and Trowa shouldn’t.  He was separating himself from that life.  He had left the flute and all the sheet music on the desk so he wouldn’t be tempted to cling to what needed dropping.  Trowa couldn’t have music.  He couldn’t run the risk of remembering, longing, and succumbing.  That piano needed to be thrown out.

Except Trowa had always been a little drawn to the piano, and Tracey was rather sentimental, and moving a piano probably cost a lot.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.  “It’s no big deal.  Maybe I’ll try to learn.  Give me something to do.”

The landlord looked relieved, perhaps even a bit excited, before turning surprisingly pale as a shrill voice shouted from down the hall. 

“There you are!”

The landlord stepped slowly out of the apartment.  “Mrs. Cass, good to see you.  How are the kids?”

“Still peeing in the dark.  You told me you would fix my light last week.”

“Yes, I did, but—”

“Do you know how many batteries I’ve gone through, showering and brushing teeth by flashlight?”

“A lot, I’m sure.”

“I need that light, Mr. Muller, and I need it now.”

“I’m a little busy at the moment,” he said, gesturing into the apartment.  Tracey, who was  uncomfortable around fights, had migrated towards the piano.  It had a better line of sight and was a better place to hide. 

Mrs. Cass poked her head around Mr. Muller.  A stout woman with narrow, curious eyes, she stepped a little closer to the door, adjusting both her purse and her plastic shopping bag.  Trowa managed a small, friendly but cautious smile as she looked him up and down.  She was a teacher at a junior high school.  She seemed curious, possibly friendly, but strict and unyielding: the perfect personality for dealing with unruly teens and pre-teens. 

She had also forgotten to unpin plastic-protected nameplate that read “Rebecca Cass, East Shore JHS” from her neat blouse.

“Oh,” she said, having the modesty to look a little embarrassed about interrupting.  “A pleasure.”

“Likewise,” he said, gripping the edge of the piano lightly. “We shouldn’t be much longer.  I really like the place.”

Mr. Muller seemed less happy about the declaration.  Then again, he didn’t seem very keen on using whatever limited skills he might have on a broken bathroom fixture.  Mrs. Cass, glancing around the apartment with mild dislike, sniffed once before stepping back.

“As long as that light gets fixed today.”

“I don’t know about today.  I might have to get parts—”

“That’s what you said last week—”

In the few seconds it took Trowa to look down and watch his fingers stroke the edge of the lid once, Tracey had an uncle with the proper skill set, and enough affection for his nephew, to take Tracey under his wing until a fatal construction accident.

“Maybe I could fix it,” he said, trying not to sound too eager.  He was apparently successful; they both stared at him as if he had sprouted extra limbs.  Trowa only managed a small step backwards under the scrutiny.  Tracey probably would have retreated more, but the incredulity rankled.

Mr. Muller was at least tactful.  “Have you done anything with electric, son?”

“A bit.  My uncle was in construction.  I wired a house for him once,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and shrugging some.  Tracey _would_ consider wiring a house a small accomplishment.

Mrs. Cass was suitably impressed.  She glanced at the landlord once before nodding down the hall.  “My place’s down here.  Come have a look.”

Mrs. Cass lived three doors down, in an end unit.  The front door was a little worse for wear, dinged and chipped in places thanks to the energy of how ever many kids she had.  But the lock was sturdy, giving a satisfying thud as she unlocked the door.  She led them through a small front hall, stepping carefully over abandoned shoes and toys, to the second door on the right.  She turned on the hall light and handed Trowa a flashlight.

“Hang on,” she said, “I think I’ve got some tools in the kitchen.”

Trowa had never checked the wiring of a bathroom. It couldn’t be anywhere near as complicated as installing computer modules or repairing the motor wiring on a Gundam.  So when she returned with a couple of screw drivers, pliers, and a hammer, Trowa took them without a word.  He opened the door and felt along the dark bathroom’s wall for the switch.

“Can someone hold the flashlight?”

Mr. Muller took the flashlight from him and held it surprisingly steady as Trowa unscrewed the wall cover.  There were surprisingly few wires, but most looked frayed.  In some cases chewed.  Trowa set the cover and screws down carefully before climbing onto the toilet seat and unscrewing the fixture.

Trowa wasn’t dumb enough to play with wires while the electric was one.  “The wiring’s bad.  Can we turn off the power while I fix it?”

In the time it took Mr. Muller to find the breaker, shut off the necessary currents, and come back, Trowa had worked out a suitable fix.  It was temporary, but a light fixture wasn’t as crucial as a targeting system.  Temporary was fine. 

It took Trowa less than ten minutes to reestablish the connections and screw the fixture and the wall cover back on.  He flicked the switch.  The bulb flickered once before washing the room with cool, white light. 

“Let there be light,” Mrs. Cass sighed.  “About time.”

“It’s just a temporary fix,” Trowa said slowly.  “But it should last for a little while at least.  If I can get new wire, I can rewire the whole thing.”

“We’ll get you a spool,” Mr. Muller said, looking up at the light.

Mrs. Cass smiled.  “I appreciate this Mr.—”

“Tracey.”

“Tracey.  I owe you a dinner, so I hope you stick around.”

Trowa was walking back to his prospective apartment with the landlord, wondering if Tracey seemed like a suitable vegetarian, when Mr. Muller spoke.

“What else did you do with your uncle,” he asked.

Trowa waited for a few seconds, running a hand on the back of his neck.  “Installation stuff mostly.  Windows and cabinets and stuff.  Did some wood working and painting, installed floors a couple of times.  Oh, and repairs.  I did lots of repairs.”

“Plumbing?”

Basic plumbing couldn’t be that hard.  “Not really, but I could figure it out.”

Mr. Muller looked at the hall, following ceiling cracks and eyeing chipped paint.  “We haven’t had a half decent maintenance guy in years, and I’m not much of a handyman.”  He looked at Trowa.  “Are you thinking of staying, Mr. Reynolds?”

“It’s a nice place.”

“I’ll knock off a couple of bucks from your rent, if you help me out.  Small stuff, like that fixture.”

“How much is ‘a couple of bucks’,” he asked.  Tracey wasn’t _that_ stupid. 

“How about a hundred a month?  You’ll get reimbursement for whatever materials you have to buy.”

Sounded reasonable, if Trowa got a job.  If he couldn’t get a job, Tracey’s wavering voice might be able reopen negotiations.

“Sounds good, Mr. Muller.”

“Welcome to the building, then, Mr. Reynolds.”

The paperwork took less time than Trowa thought it might, but it was still a good hour of fine print and house rules.  He asked few questions, submitted his deposit, and signed the lease with a cramped signature.  Mr. Muller offered to help him get the landline reconnected.  Trowa asked about internet capabilities, and Mr. Muller said he would get something ready within the week. 

Key in hand, Trowa collected his duffle bag from the corner (he had wanted to look a little desperate when he arrived at the office, just to hurry the process) and walked the two flights back up to his apartment.

Once inside, Trowa locked the door.  He tossed the duffle bag at the couch and banged his head back against the wood.  The sharp pain did nothing for his headache.

On assignment, Trowa _never_ dropped a persona.  Waking or sleeping, in private or public, Trowa _was_ whomever he had made.  But Trowa wasn’t on assignment.  He wasn’t in “designated” housing, where the monitoring of his private activities was a very real concern.  He was in a water-logged apartment, previously owned by a dead concert pianist, paid for with his own limited funds.  He was playing, not being.

And damn it, playing Tracey was exhausting.

Trowa didn’t have anyone but himself to blame.  He had wanted someone who would be difficult to find.  He had wanted someone without short cuts or connections.  He wanted someone who had to take the long road through the murky underground, someone who had to trip through mazes of paperwork.  He had wanted someone vulnerable and skill-less, someone who surprised people when he managed to do something well.

Trowa had wanted someone weak, because they wouldn’t be looking for weak.   They would be looking for someone capable, someone with just a little too much of one of Trowa’s skills.  They would look for someone with connections.  They would look for someone new in the cyber underground, who had slipped into thievery or mercenary work, which was why Trowa had stayed well away from the internet.  He stayed as far away from all that as he could, so he hadn’t heard from them yet.  Not even a whisper.

The fact that Trowa was now hitting two weeks without even a hint of being tracked made him more nervous rather than less.  Heero was good.  There were plenty of things for him to track, even with Trowa neglecting all of his “standard” paths.  Airports, hotels, surveillance tapes.  There were only so many ports within “highly unlikely but possible” distance.  Heero could easily figure out that Trowa was avoiding what he knew.  He could easily start looking through the dives and red eyes.  When he did, Trowa would stick out like a sore thumb in the records. 

He hadn’t yet, which meant one of two things.  Either Heero wasn’t searching or he was scheming.

The idiocy he couldn’t seem to beat down actually hoped it was the latter.

If Heero was plotting, it could be weeks before he made a move, which meant that Trowa would have to play Tracey for much longer than he had hoped.  He wasn’t an idiot; he planned on dropping Tracey first chance he got, once it was safe to get back into the network.  It wasn’t safe now.  Now, even a minute was too much.  Just a minute, to see what was brewing, what someone needed, was too much lead.  Heero could find him with less.  But eventually Tracey would disappear.  When he could make some connections—sometime after Heero got tired of searching, and he would get tired—Trowa would leave and set up again.  Probably in a city.  Under a new name, maybe with a few habits, but with his usual skills

That, however, could be months from now.  Trowa wasn’t sure he could handle months of Tracey.  _I have to._ Biting back a groan, Trowa stepped away from the door and examined the apartment with his own, far more critical, eye.

He could have afforded something better, something that would have lasted him.  In less than five years, Trowa had no doubt that the cracks in the ceiling would spread, and the floor boards would be rotted enough to dip and finally splinter under weight.  He could have gotten something better, but there was nothing better to be had.  The war, and the years proceeding it, had been cruel to small cities like this.  Governments saw no reason to flood such mediocre places with the same amount of money and attention as the bigger, classier cities.   On the one hand it was a shame; Ocean City must have been a quaint place in its heyday.  He might have enjoyed it.  On the other hand, mediocre, dilapidated, and depressed were excellent covers. 

At least the apartment was relatively clean.  There was a thin layer of dust and the faint smell of lemon and bleach.  There was no mold, however, or webs.  There were no pellets from small rodents.  And it was furnished, which was convenient since he didn’t have a car nor did he plan on buying one.  The paperwork could be too easily tracked.  He did wish the pieces were better matched.  The small oak table with its four chairs didn’t work all that well with the floral-printed couch, or the end table, or the piano.  Everything was sturdy, however.  Well-used but well-cared for, as one might expect from a single, elderly lady.

Trowa was throwing the doilies away first chance he got, though.

The kitchen was just as bad and good as the living room.  The narrow island that partly separated the two had lost most of its varnish.  The countertop was chipped.  The sink was a bit rusted.  There were no leaks or drips, however, and the stove and refrigerator were both in working order.  He would have to buy a microwave, which was an expense he didn’t expect.  When he opened the few cabinets, he found half-decent cookware, a suitable white-and-blue dish set, and plenty of space to store dried or canned food.  The drawers had most of the cutlery he might need.   

He would have to read up on cooking, considering he had been rather spoiled living with—

Trowa slammed the drawer shut hard and fast, nearly catching his fingers.  _Do not remember.  Do not name.  Do.  Not.  You cannot separate if you name.  You need to separate._

It was irritating how hard separating _was_.  It was disturbing how much separating _hurt_.

Deciding to find a library as soon as possible (culinary and repair books _should_ be there), Trowa left the kitchen and moved down the short narrow hall off to the side.  There were two bedrooms, one on either side.  One was obviously a guest room, given its unnatural tidiness and the strong, musty smell that came with extended disuse.  The guest room’s dresser was empty except for a scentless pouch of potpourri.  The closet had a few hangers and an old coat.  The bed looked stiff, with a thick flowery duvet and far too many pillows.  A small bear sat on the front of the pillow pile, its brown fur choked with dust. 

The whole room was slightly uncomfortable in its abandonment.  Once he got settled, and could afford it, he decided he might dismantle it.  Get rid of the dresser and add a desk.  Put up some shelves if he was allowed.  At the very least, the duvet and pillows were going.  The bear could stay.

The main bedroom was right across from the guest room.  Matching the layout piece for piece, it at least looked inhabited.  The dark blue duvet was flattened with nightly use.  There was a small collection of things on the dresser: a comb, a mirror, some bobby pins and hairclips.  The drawers and closet were empty. 

There were occupied bookshelves, one of which spanned the width of the bed just over the headboard.  Trowa toed off his shoes and stepped onto the bed.  He gave the wood a hard tug.  Whoever had put it in had done a good job.  Unless there was an earthquake, the books probably wouldn’t fall on him in the middle of the night.  He scanned the titles briefly.  Most were paperback romances, but there was a biography or two about musicians he had never heard of and a few hardback copies of classic literature. 

It was nice to know he already had material for when the nightmares woke him up.

The bathroom was at the very end of the hall.  Trowa opened the door and felt along a wall for the switch.  He wasn’t surprised to find it in the same area as Mrs. Cass’.  Trowa flicked on the light.  Part of him had been expecting it, but he still reeled when he caught his reflection in the mirror.

He was never going to get used to black hair.  Never. 

Of course, it wasn’t _really_ black.  Black would have been too noticeable.  It was more of a dark brown that _looked_ black in the right lighting.  Trowa approached the mirror slowly, plucking at hair that had slipped into his face.  The color, unusual, unfamiliar, unwanted as it was, at least didn’t clash with his eyebrows.  Not noticeably, anyway.  Trowa could dye them.  He’d be refreshing the color in a week, and it would be much easier to do now that he wasn’t bent over a too-small sink in a seedy motel with his heart racing.  But dyeing eyebrows was such a hassle.  He had enough hassles.

Trowa had considered cutting his hair, too, partly to spare himself additional stress.  _That_ style was too conspicuous, and every day he was at least a little tempted it put it up.  Just for a little while.  Cutting would solve that.  Trowa just couldn’t bring himself to do it, little though he liked the constant brushing of his hair against his neck and shoulders.  He just wasn’t ready.  Maybe in a few more weeks, a few months.

_Never._ Trowa turned off the light and closed the door. 

Returning to the living room, Trowa collected his bag and settled in.  He only had a week’s worth of clothes, a few toiletries, some necessary odds and ends, and his laptop.  Everything had a place in an under an hour.  In another hour, he had a list of things he needed.  In the third hour, he broke that down into shorter lists of “immediately,”“soon,” and “eventually.”

Trowa glanced out of the glass door leading to the small balcony.  It was past sunset.  A bank account and a job would have to wait until tomorrow, but he could get basic necessities tonight.  Trowa pushed aside the notebook, picked up the “immediate” list, and crouched down by the duffle bag now next to the couch.  He reached in, pulled on the zipper hidden in the lining, and then removed the sturdy foam that made up the bag’s fake bottom. 

Trowa was already uncomfortable with money.  People tended to do stupid things for it.  Carrying thousands of it made him more than a little uneasy, even with the precautions of a fake-bottomed bag and his own skills.  It could have been worse, of course.  If he had gone to a dealer, or an _honest_ pawnshop, there would be another twenty thousand lining the bottom of the bag.  It almost made him glad that the back-alley pawnshop had bought his bike for practically nothing.

Almost.

Trowa slipped a couple of hundreds into his wallet, reinserted the fake bottom, and hid the bag temporarily in the guest room.  He would have to be careful about depositing everything.  Small increments, probably, every few weeks so no one asked questions.  It would probably take half a year.  If he opened a second bank account later, it might take less.  If he did that, though, he would have to come up with a good excuse for Tracey to have two, or make another persona. 

Trowa didn’t have the energy for two of them. 

Wallet and list in pocket, Trowa locked the apartment and headed downstairs. 

Trowa had come from the northern part of the small city, from a motel he had sprung for because he was tired of sleeping on benches.  He hadn’t seen much in the way of businesses on the way.  The ocean was about a mile to the east; he could already smell the sharp brine as it drifted around the dirty bricks of empty office buildings.  Trowa headed west.

Since he was outside, Trowa walked with the fast, twitchy gait, hands deep in his pockets.  Out of place, slightly paranoid.  Tracey would be an easy target in a larger city.  The few people he saw on the quiet streets knew it.  Only one looked even remotely like a threat.  Trowa didn’t establish eye contact and fluttered by without incident.

About a half a mile from the apartment, he started to see a different side of the city.  It was promising, active.  Several banks lined the street at strategic, competitive intervals.  Only one of them, a very small, a local branch, appeared to be on the verge of closing.  Trowa paused outside of each.  He planned on stopping into all of them tomorrow.  He would ask all the appropriate questions about savings accounts and deposits and wiring money, but most likely he would go with the national bank.  It was a little riskier, but it would be the most convenient.  The clerks there would also probably ask the least amount of questions.  He would be a number as opposed to a “customer,” which suited him just fine. 

Of course, if one of the smaller branches was noticeably better about discreet wiring, he’d open an account there.  He had already paid Richards but felt a little extra was in order.  Trowa still felt guilty about threatening to shoot his wife. 

Further down the street, Trowa encountered budding social life.  Most of the shops were finishing for the day, owners and clerks bidding lingering customers a pleasant evening with obvious false cheer.  They eyed Trowa warily until he skittered by and the threat that he would extend their day skittered off with him.  The few restaurants spilled light of various colors and brightness onto the sidewalk.  Occasionally Trowa heard the faint chink of china, a bar of music, or the laughter of diners. One or two of the doors were open.  When he passed them, the air was filled with fresh bread and grilled fish, seasoned with salt and garlic.

Trowa couldn’t stop himself from lingering.  He had survived most of the last two weeks on protein and energy bars, too concerned with staying ahead to risk anything more substantial.  Plus, the sandwich he had dared during the first week had nearly lost him an entire day’s worth of travel.  He could stop now, of course.  There was nothing wrong with Tracey going to a restaurant.  In fact, he might do it rather often if he proved to be a subpar cook.  But it seemed too early for Tracey.  Tracey was uncomfortable.  Tracey was self-conscious and going to a restaurant would be inserting himself into a public that he just wasn’t ready for.

If Trowa didn’t find a grocery store soon, though, Tracey would just have to fidget at small wicker table and drop his fork repeatedly.

Trowa continued down the street, observing the stores and restaurants and making mental notes about their convenience and benefits and comparing them to Tracey’s preferences.  He would see diners on occasion: couples walking hand-in-hand out of small cafes, families with small children held tightly but lovingly to their parents’ sides.  Most of them ignored him.  A few smiled at him.  Trowa endeavored to return a small smile.  He even managed a small “evening” on occasion.

He turned at the next corner and, once he was sure no one was around, leaned against the wall for a minute.  Trowa rolled his shoulders back and let out a very un-Tracey sigh, pinching his temples.  He heard the sharp click of a heel around the corner.  Trowa straightened, rolled his shoulders forward, and moved on.   

Down the block, Trowa saw the sidewalk washed with fluorescent light.  As he neared, he heard car doors slam and then the gentle rattle of metal carts.  Trowa watched the grocery store, standing off to the side.   It was a small one.  The parking lot barely fit a dozen cars; at the moment, it was almost deserted.  Did it close early, or was it on the verge of closing permanently?  There was a sign in the window.  Trowa approached. He stopped when he was within reading distance for a moment before continuing inside.

He’d take a look around before asking what kind of “help” they were looking for.

Trowa had wandered up and down three small aisles, basket in hand, before figuring out the help they needed.  Every aisle he entered, he saw several empty shelves, and he heard several customers grumbling about them as they left.  As he turned down the canned soup aisle, Trowa saw one very harassed-looking man running around with a hand trolley full of cardboard boxes. 

_Stock_.  Refilling shelves and produce bins.  Unloading trucks.  He could do that.  He had done that, sort of.  And grocery stock ran none (or at the very least much fewer) of the risks that hauling ammunition, casings, and wiring crates did.  Physically labor could keep him distracted.

He needed distractions.

Trowa moved slowly, filling his basket and memorizing general locationss.  Fruits, vegetables, breads, drinks, snacks, cans of soups, cereals, frozen meats and dinners, household products, soaps.  His basket was pulling hard on his arm by the time he reached the checkout. 

Four cashiers were on duty.  Trowa choose the one closest to him in age.  The line wasn’t too long.  The young man in the black t-shirt and red apron smiled when Trowa started emptying his basket onto the conveyor.

“Have a price card?”

“Oh.  No.”

He nodded and started scanning items.  Trowa, rubbing the back of his neck, moved slowly towards the end of the conveyor.  As the food piled up, he glanced around with mild but obvious curiosity.

“New to town,” the cashier asked.

“Just got a place today.”

“It’s not a bad town, if you like kids and old folks. My old man said Ocean City used to be really sweet, back, you know, before I was born.”

Trowa tilted his head with a curious hum.  He took a plastic bag from the end of the checkout lane and started packing his groceries.

“I mean, the boardwalk isn’t bad.  There are stores and restaurants and rides and stuff.  It’s kind of cool, in season.  But none of the good stuff is open yet.”

“When’s it open?”

He sighed.  “Summer, and if I have my way I’ll be out here long before then.”

“College?”

“Grad school.  Can’t really afford it but it beats sitting around, waiting for my BA to be relevant.”

Tracey had dropped out of college in his second year.  He sold his books, packed everything he could, and caught buses from Colorado to New Jersey.  The night before the first leg, he had ripped up a dozen letters to his grandmother, who had scrapped for his meager college fund for years.  Before withdrawing everything, he had slipped a small note in her mailbox: “I’m sorry.” 

So he smiled just a little, allowing a faint, embarrassed flush to run briefly over his face.

“What about you?  Going to Stockton, or did you come with folks?”

Stockton was one of the nearest colleges.  The fact that it was still open was something of a small miracle.  Tracey had dreams of being a writer, without any formal training, so he wouldn’t be caught on campus unless there was an open mic night where his short stories would be indulged.

“Thinking of applying for the fall term,” he said.

“It’s a nice school.  My best friend went there.  He liked it.”

Trowa nodded, sliding the last loaf of bread into a bag.  He paid, slipped two bags onto his wrists, gripped the last two tightly, and turned.  Then he paused, glancing over his shoulder.  As he hoped, the cashier noticed and turned back towards him, away from the elderly woman he was starting to ring up.

“What’s up?”

Trowa shifted his feet slightly before speaking.  “What time do you guys open?”

The cashier smiled.  “Nine.  But the general manager is usually here at seven.”

“Would it be okay if I came around ten?  I saw the sign outside.”

“Sure.  Give me your name.  I’ll leave a note on the door telling him about you.”

“That’d be great.  Thanks.”

After the cashier scribbled down his name, and Trowa mumbled apologies to the irritated woman, Trowa headed back to the apartment.  Halfway, Trowa decides that eighty-five dollars’ worth of groceries was just a little too heavy to carry often.  He would have to more careful next time.   

The apartment was nearly pitch black when Trowa came in, fingers throbbing and his breath coming out in a soft pant.  He dropped the bags on the table and ignored the one that fell over as he went to turn on the light.  He rubbed his fingers as the frosted overhead threw pale light across the ceiling.   The light in the kitchen was fluorescent, thankfully.

Trowa picked up the fallen bag.  Of course it was the bread.

He took his time putting everything away, organizing only after everything that needed refrigeration was away.  Frozen vegetables went intothe back of the freezer, half of the bread in the front.  The rest of the bread went in the bread box.  All the fruits and vegetables, except the apples, ended up in the crisper.  He put the apples in a bowl on the table.  His safety rations of canned vegetables and fruit and soup and beans went into the cabinets.  Cleaning materials went under the sink.  The toiletries eventually made it to the bathroom.

Trowa finished quickly, too quickly.  He got a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water.  He leaned against the counter and drank. 

And then the restlessness descended.

He could shower.  He was hot and tired from the walk, and scalding water would distract him and maybe even ease the knots in his shoulders.  The problem was that he wasn’t tired enough to take a shower.  He wasn’t tired enough to undress and stand beneath a stream without his hands moving, restless and thirsty for touch. 

He could sleep.  He was exhausted.  Unfortunately, roaming hands came fast and insistent in bed, and after that there were the nightmares.

He could write.  Tracey would probably make a friend or two.  He would probably mention his dream of writing novels and those friends would probably express at least a mild interest in his work.  Trowa should have something to show.

Why were all his options nothing short of torture?

When he started contemplating hijacking someone’s wireless, Trowa swept up his keys.  He was going to walk.

Trowa started by going north, up the road he had taken from the motel that morning.  He walked past the motel, dark except for a window on the top floor and the sick yellow glow from the reception desk.  He walked past the park he had slept in his first night in town.  He had timed everything wrong that first night, stepping off the highway too late to check-in anywhere.  Trowa walked past the traffic circle.  He finally stopped on the bridge into town, where he first caught the smell of the edge of the continent.

Trowa turned west, heading south on occasion.  He wandered past dunes and sand grass and the empty beer cans that rolled down them softly when the wind nudged them.  He walked past empty houses and boarded up apartment buildings.  He moved around garbage and strays.  He ignored and was ignored by narrowed eyes and the brief red flare of cigarettes.  When he heard the scuff of a shoe behind him, Trowa turned true south.  The scuff gave up after a block. 

Trowa continued south until he found his way back into occupied residencies.  Most of the windows were dark, but he heard low noises: the whine of a dog, the rumble of late-night television.  He walked under the streetlamps past empty streets and empty cars, until he passed a school.  He turned and passed another and then started towards the east. 

He passed another school, larger than the first, and then a squat building with a tall sign that could only be a theater.  Just as the smell of the sea grew stronger, Trowa found the library.  He made a brief note of it and then continued on.  Salt tickled his tongue.  Tracey’s stride slowly lengthened into his usual long gait.  Trowa’s stride quickened, carrying him almost at a run over disused trolley tracks and up the weather-beaten wooden ramp.

Trowa stood on the boardwalk, the wind curling around him.  Grains of sand skittered softly over the weather-beaten, wooden planks.  He was on a segment of the boardwalk far away from the “sweet” part the cashier had mentioned.   There were no stores or restaurants here.  There were no buildings at all. There weren’t even lamp posts.  There was only the wood and its rusted bearings, and a thin sliver of moon in a black sky. 

He leaned against the railing and breathed for a moment.  Then Trowa toed off his shoes.  He stuffed his socks in them and left them on the boardwalk as he dropped down into the sand.

The beach was cold.  There was none of the meager heat of the day left in the white grains.  But the chill and hard scratch against his skin was fresh and new and more than he had imagined.  Trowa walked slowly to the water’s edge, feeling the sand shift beneath him with every step.  The sand grew colder, moister, as he crossed the tide line. 

Trowa watched the quiet breathing of the sea, listened to the gentle susurrus of the foam as the water broke against the shore.  Salt water caressed his cheek as it splashed quietly up from where the ocean kissed the beach.  The waves dragged long, thin lines of sand back into the black expanse.  Trowa stood and listening to the quiet, constant song of earth and water. 

For a moment, it all actually seemed worth it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really miss Ocean City.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trowa has to do -something- about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: swearing, awkward masturbation, severe self loathing

“God damn it all to hell!  Tracey!”               

Trowa, crouched next to the newest shipment of cereal boxes, sighed.  He never thought he would meet someone who swore more than Duo.  Trowa stood slowly, wincing as his back complained, and brushed his hands off on his black pants.  He frowned when they complained too.  Trowa flexed his stiff, aching fingers for a moment before calling “coming” and jogging over to the truck with Tracey’s usual twitching enthusiasm.              

Greg, the “stock manager” for all intents and purposes, glared down at him from the cargo bed.  “Pissed” seemed to be the man’s usual mood, so Trowa had already stopped assuming he had done something every time Greg started swearing.  Tracey was not so quick.              

“What’d I do?”           

“Get in here,” Greg snapped.              

Trowa gripped the edge of the truck and hoisted himself inside.  His hands cramped around the metal.  Worse, it took him a second longer than usual to make the muscles relax.  Thankfully, Greg didn’t notice.             

Squatting near the mouth of the bed, Greg gestured towards the last of the load.  “What the hell is that?”              

Trowa crouched near him.  The week’s last shipment was almost fully unloaded.  It had been a much slower, much heavier affair than Tuesday’s shipment of frozen food and yesterday’s of fresh meat and produce.  There were twice as many boxes today, packed twice as heavy with cans and boxes of processed food.  Trowa understood the scheduling; longer shelf life meant fewer, bulkier shipments to cover the necessary quantities.  His fingers, however, weren’t thanking him for the additional strain.              

Rocking on his toes, Trowa looked at the last half-dozen boxes.  It didn’t take him long to see the problem.              

“Looks like boxes to me,” he said slowly.  Trowa rocked forward and tilted his head to read the upside-down printout on the side.  “Boxes of tuna fish.”              

“See anything wrong with those boxes of tuna fish?"               

“Well, they’re upside down to start.”           

“Damn right they are.  And what’s that next to the label?”             

“An arrow.”               

“Damn right, and this is why you should get your ass back to college so you don’t forget what the fuck ‘up’ is.” 

For someone who complained often about how three degrees between five kids had bled him dry, Greg was surprisingly adamant about Tracey going back to college.  Tracey, however, had several ridiculously romantic notions about fame and changing the world.  None of them even suggested a bachelor’s degree.  

“I thought degrees were scams,” he said. 

“Degrees _are_ scams, in the hands kids who don’t know any better.  And you ain’t one of those, so you damn well better get your ass back there.” 

Trowa rocked back on his heels, steadying himself with a hand against the truck wall.  As a rule, Tracey was openly sensitive about very few things; it was easier, and often safer, for him to agree with others.  College, however—more specifically his decision to drop out—was a sore spot.  No one understood how those institutions destroyed artists.  Those brick and mortar mausoleums crushed the creative spirit: drained the writer of his muse, the musician of his talent, the artist of his vision.  They bled the creator dry, leaving husks where there used to be greatness.  Those husks spent the rest of their miserable lives shuffling aimlessly through the sprawling halls of the “esteemed vaults of education.” 

No one understood how Tracey was so much better than that.  He was so much better than a four-year sickness and a piece of paper to hang his creative genius with.  Tracey had the same spark that had lit the hands of Shakespeare, Blake, and Joyce, and he would do nothing to risk it being snuffed out. 

The irony was intentional. 

Trowa had read passages from all of them, for research.  Blake he found in the bedroom, a battered copy of _Songs of Innocence and Experience_ nestled between Chopin’s and Handel’s biographies.  Shakespeare and Joyce had been at the library.  He found them when he had been looking for anything on woodworking.  Trowa hadn’t gotten through more than a page of either before putting them back. 

Stockton was offering a fall-term survey course on Shakespeare, and an entire class on Joyce’s _Ulysses_. Trowa would have to take at least four courses before even being able to think about tackling that.  Not that Trowa was thinking about it.  Heero could hack a private university’s administration system easily, and the credit card Trowa would have to pay admission fees and course costs even easier.  College was out of the question.  

Trowa dropped back onto his toes and pretended he wasn’t disappointed. 

“I’m not writing with my eraser yet,” Trowa said, letting a little sarcasm touch Tracey’s voice. “I think I’ll be fine.” 

Tracey used sarcasm so rarely that Greg picked up on it right away.  He gave Trowa a shove.  Trowa shot his foot out to catch himself from a fall that wasn’t exactly faked. 

“Flip the boxes, smart ass, and God help you if anything pops out.” 

The last six boxes weren’t the heaviest but Trowa moved them carefully, mindful of his hands as they moved along the edges.  He wasn’t particularly concerned about Greg’s empty threat.  He was, however, concerned about Holly’s reaction if any of the cans went out on the floor dented.  

Aside from helping with the weekly shopping trip, Trowa had had only a limited understanding of how grocery stores worked.  He knew they stocked and sold food, using a pricing algorithm that Trowa couldn’t even begin to understand.  He knew that they often sold less-than-perfect products: a few bruised apples in every bushel, a dented can in every dozen, a slightly crumpled box on every shelf.  It was never anything threatening (those got recalled).  Just less than perfect.  There had almost always been something in their weekly load that was outwardly damaged.  

What Trowa hadn’t known then was that stores had rules about for selling those less-than-perfect products.  

Per health regulations, anything that wasn’t sold by the expiration date was removed and eventually thrown out.  Damaged goods were notorious for not making it in time.  It was a waste of food and money.  This store, however, had an unusually low percentage rate for wasted food.  Cashiers essentially bribed their customers with discounts to take the damaged goods.  The worse the damage, the higher the discount.  It was a good system.  In the two weeks he had been working here, he had thrown away only about a dozen expired-and-damaged products. 

According to Holly, it was a very crooked system.

The discount only applied to products that were damaged during transport or by staff, and Holly was sure people were gaming the system.  There was no way to prove it, of course.  There were no tapes of the canned goods aisle to watch or ledgers for “damage discounts given in August” to read.  There was no way to be sure that people weren’t denting their own cans for a few cents off their bill.  But Holly was sure it was happening.   That was the problem with honor systems, she said.  You couldn’t trust people to respect it.  You couldn’t trust customers to honor the honor system.  You could trust the staff, though, with the right motivation.  If you threatened their pay, you could trust them to be careful. 

Trowa thought it was illegal to have his pay docked for every damaged discount he caused.  Tracey was not.  So Tracey moved boxes from trucks and took food from boxes with the utmost care.  And Trowa did his best not to smirk when Holly circled the stockroom with all the grace of labrador chasing its tail. 

When all of the boxes were right-way up, Trowa dropped carefully out of the cargo bed and waited for Greg to move them to the edge.  He was at least twice Trowa’s age and weight, with only half of his muscle, but he still managed to push the boxes across the bed with moderate ease.  Lifting them was another matter.  Trowa tried not to peek around the box and make a face as Greg lifted with all the wrong muscles.  Greg had already told him, colorfully, exactly how much he appreciated a dropout’s advice on manual labor. 

Trowa swore he wouldn’t smirk when Greg finally pulled or threw something.

Greg got his hands under the first box and lifted.  Trowa slid his hands underthe other end and waited for the cardboard to tip back into his chest.  He realized two things as the weight shifted.  The first was that the cardboard beneath his fingers was dangerously soaked.  The second was that his fingers were cramping and quickly losing feeling.  One of them was going to give.  Which one would do it first was the question. 

The box settled against his chest.  Trowa, fighting a grimace, took a step back.  He took a second and there was a sharp, tearing sound.  Trowa juggled ripped cardboard and falling tuna for a few seconds before several of heavy, plastic-wrapped bundles of cans landed right on his foot. 

Trowa jumped back.  Most of his swearing was drowned out by the crashing cans. 

“God damn it Tracey—" 

“Shit—” 

“That’s like fifty cans—” 

“That fucking hurt—” 

“Of course it hurt.  There’s six per pack.”

Trowa sneered.  “Whose brilliant idea was that?” 

“Stop complaining and help me clean them up.  You didn’t drop them far, maybe they’re okay.” 

“I didn’t drop them at all,” he spat.  “The box ripped.” 

“Would you shut up and help me?” 

Trowa sneered.  For a moment, he was tempted to refuse, or even kick one of the packages at Greg.  But then his foot throbbed.  Trowa sighed softly and dropped to the ground, dull pain lancing up his shin as he rocked forward onto the ball of his injured foot.  He grabbed the nearest pack of cans and started a pile. 

Suddenly, with his hands full of bent cardboard and less-than-perfectly-round cans, getting docked per dent didn’t seem quite as impossible. 

Trowa was making a second pile (and doing rough math in his head, just in case Holly _did_ make good on her threats) when Greg glanced at him. 

“How’s the foot?” 

“Fine,” he muttered, just loud enough that he could claim he wasn’t sulking. 

“Not broken?”

“I can move it, if that’s what you mean.”

Greg smirked.  “You’ve never had a broken bone, have you?”  Trowa had had plenty, actually.  More than Greg probably.  “I’m talking about moving it without screaming.”

If he wanted to, Trowa could pop a dislocated shoulder in without screaming. He had almost gotten sick with the pain, but he certainly hadn’t screamed.

Trowa made a small show of checking his foot, flexing the muscles and prodding it hard with his thumb.  The top of his foot hurt more than he thought it would, and the pain felt deeper, but he didn’t feel any bones grinding.

“I think it’s alright.”

“Good.  How about those hands?" 

Trowa paused, fingers clenched around another packet of cans.  _What about my hands,_ he thought, even as his fingers gave a traitorous twinge.  Greg couldn’t have noticed.  “They’re fine.”

“Don’t give me that.  You’ve been wringing and flexing them all week.”

Trowa had only been doing that since Wednesday, which was only half a week.  Before Wednesday, Trowa had been cracking them.  Forcing them to crack, really: pressing his thumbs against the joints until the bones gave that sharp, satisfying pop.  Every finger, a couple of times a day.  Then it had been a couple of times an hour.  On Wednesday, Trowa had dropped a glass of water and realized that his fingers were swollen and red.  And they _hurt_. 

The swelling had finally gone down, and the pain had devolved into a more tolerable ache.  It was a marked improvement after only a couple of days of conscious effort.

Trowa knew what had happened.  He couldn’t ignore restlessness.  Inactivity, or in this case captivity, grated on his every nerve.  It wore his patience down, and strained his impassive mask to the point of cracking.  He couldn’t use any of his usual coping mechanisms, either; they either raised the risk of discovery or else they were things Tracey would never do.

Tracey would never run for miles.  He would never practice balance on railings.  He would never check his aim with kitchen knives or a gun.  He would never take apart the nearest thing and then put it back together.

Tracey would write.  Maybe he would read for an hour, but he would always write.  Trowa was starting to hate writing.   

Trowa would have to learn to like it, though, if he couldn’t find a way to vent his frustrations that didn’t involve hurting himself.

“My hands are fine,” he said.

“Your hands are trying to tell you something.  I’d listen.”

“Like what?”

Greg rocked back onto his heels.  “You’re a writer, right?  Songs and shit.”

“Stories, actually.”

“Whatever, you’re still writing, aren’t you?" 

“It’s not ‘whatever.’ They’re totally different.”

“Fine.  They’re different.  It’s still writing, right?”

“Right,” he muttered.

Greg nodded.  “Way I see it,” he said as he slipped his hands beneath one of the piles of cans.  “A writer’s hands might not be used to so much work.”

Trowa’s fingers tightened around the cans in his hands.  It took every ounce of willpower he had to put them—not drop, and certainly not throw—carefully on the floor.

His hands were _fine_ when it came to the work.  Better than fine, and certainly better than Greg’s.  Trowa’s hands had carried paneling and cartridge cases without ever dropping so much as a corner.  They had slid between bullet shredded metal and sparking electrical wiring and got only minor scratches or burns.  They had never slipped with a soldering tool and never cramped around the thruster. 

They never dropped a weapon.  They never trembled with a knife or a gun.  They never collapsed under his weight as he flipped, or lost the bar he was trying to catch.  He might not have used them as much in the last couple of months ( _half a year, more than half_ , almost _a year_ ); but Trowa’s hands remembered.  His arms and his legs might need a little reminding, but his hands remembered.

His hands were fine.  It was the rest of him, right now his head most of all, that was the problem.

Tracey’s had been far from idle, too, and he took offensive to any suggestion that writing made him soft.  So Trowa let him bristle.

“My hands are fine,” he spat.  “I wired a whole house with these, and put in the floors, and shingled the roof, and wrote a novel too.”  One he never finished, but that wasn’t the point.

Greg gave him a lopsided smirk.  “Yeah?  When?”

“Three years ago with my uncle.”

“Three years is a long time to go between jobs.”

“I’ve done plenty since then.”

“With your uncle?”

“By myself.  I’m maintenance at my apartment now.  The whole damn building calls me to fix shit.”

He had gotten less than a dozen calls in the last two weeks.  They had all been minor repairs.  He hadn’t lifted more than a tool box.

“Tell you what,” Greg said, lifting the pile of cans. “You don’t wring your fingers for three days and maybe I’ll believe you.”

Greg turned and shuffled towards the stock shelves.  Trowa, biting back a sneer, snatched up his own pile.  The weight was the only thing stopping him from throwing the just-heavy-enough bundles of cans the man’s his head.  As he staggered towards the shelves, the urge faded.  Still, Trowa couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t “accidentally” drop something on Greg’s feet.  Or maybe his fingers.  _We’ll see who whines about finger pain._

Trowa ignored Greg for the rest of his shift, which actually wasn’t that difficult.  Once the trucks were unloaded, Greg usually stayed in the back with the stock and his lists, and Trowa usually stayed on the floor with the hand trolley.  Trowa only had to worry about Greg when he went back to the stock room to refill.  Since he kept his answers clipped and just this side of sulking, Greg stopped trying to talk to him after the first hour and found plenty of reasons to stay off the floor while Trowa was running around.  

It was a ridiculous workload on a normal day, when Greg would come out for clean-up calls, price checks, number runs, and bagging.  On a day like today, when they weren’t talking, it was almost impossible.  Trowa spent more time with a mop and plastic bags than with the trolley, and then lost an entire twenty minutes on top of that, thanks to Holly.  She caught him leaving the trolley, full of snack food, at the end of an aisle.  By the time she finished yelling about how much money he might have let “walk right out,” he had missed two price checks and three calls for bagging.  There was a long line of irritated, elderly ladies glaring at him when he finally got to the register.  Trowa was sure that the one with the bag of cat food cans had hit him on purpose.

It could have been worse; he could have had to rotate the produce, too. 

There were a couple of benefits to doing the work of three people alone.  He was almost guaranteed (or at least taunted with) sleep.  He was almost guaranteed total exhaustion, bone-deep and dream-quenching, which was exactly what he needed.  He was still barely getting an hour at any one time.  He would admit he was reaching the limit for normal functioning.  If running around for nine hours was what it took to knock his body out, Trowa would make sure Greg never spoke to him again.  \Trowa would have the added bonus of rubbing his stiff, aching fingers without snide comments if Greg never spoke to him again.  He could lean back against the corner of the soup aisle and rub for five whole minutes if he wanted to.

He wouldn’t, because Greg had a point.  It was hard to believe, looking at them, that these were the hands that had held him steady on the back of a lion.  It was hard to believe that these hands had clutched a throttle in a fire fight without flinching.  Trowa knelt at the end of an aisle between cleanups and stock runs.  He stared at the stressed limbs, running his thumb carefully over the red fingers and swollen joints.  The hot flesh trembled.  Trowa’s thumb skated over his palm; his fingers twitched. 

These were not the hands that got him through the war.  These frail, trembling limbs with fingers that flinched at the lightest pressure were not his hands.  They weren’t even Tracey’s.  They were a coward’s hands.  A decrepit’s hands.  Ruined by restlessness, fear, and an uncontrolled mind.  _They’re not mine._   But Trowa was going to fix that.  Soon.  

Trowa didn’t have the time to think about _how_ he would fix it; his shift was too demanding.  The rest of his time on the floor sped by as he was assaulted with calls over the speakers.  Even his break was fast.  Holly stole the second fifteen minutes from him because someone _might_ have complained about empty toilet paper shelves.  The fact that that half of the store wasn’t scheduled for restocking until tomorrow apparently didn’t matter. 

He was almost glad to leave at the end of the day.  Until he started the long walk home.  Trowa wished there was a bus that ran between the store and the apartment on days like this.  Or even a bus that ran remotely near them.  Or any bus at all.  He could use an excuse to sit.  But there were no buses in Ocean City, period.  His foot wasn’t pleased about that.

Trowa’s foot _hurt_ by the time he made it to the apartment.  It was the stairs that had really done him in.  There were just not a lot of ways to climb them without putting weight on it.  He could have hopped up, one stair at a time, like an idiot, but he couldn’t be sure no one would see him.  So Trowa had taken them slowly.  No one came into the stairwell in the ten minutes it took him, so no one asked him if he was alright.  No one saw him when he nearly slipped down the steps when after the pain buckled his knee.

Once his door was closed and locked, Trowa let himself limp around the apartment.  He walked on the side of his foot as he tossed his keys on the table and yanked his jacket off.  Even that was starting to hurt.  Maybe he _had_ broken something.  The cans hadn’t been heavy but there had been a lot of them pounding on his foot before he jumped back.  Trowa glanced down the hall.  He had some dressing in the med kit under the sink.  He should get it, bind his foot, and stretch out in bed with a glass of water, painkillers, and a stack of pillows.  If he was lucky, his foot would only ache a little tomorrow.

But the bathroom was far, and the couch was not, and in thirty minutes he could probably walk between the two without flinching.

Trowa dropped gracelessly onto the couch.  He worked off his shoes and socks, kicking them away before drawing his legs up.  He balanced his injured foot on his knee and ran his fingers carefully over it.  It was tender to the touch, though not exactly painful.  There was minimal swelling, and the bruising wasn’t the deep purple and black of serious injury.  Trowa pressed his thumbs into the bruise, gritting his teeth as he felt for the familiar grating of broken bones.  There was none. 

Just badly bruised then.  It would fade in a couple of days, a week at most.  He would ice it and bind it tonight anyway, to be on the safe side.  For the moment though, Trowa dug his thumbs into the bruise and hissed because the pain was wonderfully distracting.

Trowa got a few minutes of blissful, mind-numbing pain before his body grew used to it.  He sought out other sore spots and earned a few minutes more.  But it was still less than ten minutes before the pain lessened to a more manageable, more therapeutic ache.  Trowa, now working the tense muscles with a frown, looked around for another distraction against the creeping restlessness.  The answering machine on the side table to his left was blinking.  Trowa leaned over and pushed the play button. 

He settled against the arm rest as the throaty, mechanical voice started.  _“You have one new message.  First message.”_ There was a short pause, and then a soft, purring voice drifted out of the machine.  Trowa scowled.

_“Hello, Tracey, this is Christine, down in 103.”_ Trowa sighed.  He was tired of her starting every message like it was the first instead of the fiftieth.  _“I know I’ve been such a bother recently,”_ Her, a bother?   She had only called him seven times this week.  _“But I’m having a problem with my front door.”_ Again?  He already replaced the knob and changed the locks.  Twice.  _“It’s making this god awful screech whenever I open it.  Sounds like a dying cat.”_ He highly doubted she had ever heard the cries of a slowly-dying cat.  _“I don’t particularly mind, but you can hear it down the hall.  Neighbors are starting to complain.”_ The neighbors never complained about anything.  _“I know you’re busy with the store and your little stories,”_ _That_ was the reason why Tracey hated her. _“But if you could just pop down here for a minute sometime, I’d really appreciate it.  You know I would.”_

Yes he did, and that was part of the reason why Trowa hated her.

Christine wasn’t subtle.  She hadn’t been since Trowa met her the first time to replace her doorknob.  It had snapped off.  It didn’t take him long to figure out that she was in the middle of a messy divorce.  There was a noticeable tan line on her ring finger, and the break itself was unusual; someone had to have used something very heavy to get that angle _and_ dent most of the door handle.  It took him even less time to figure out that she wasn’t that upset.  She had mentioned the updated restraining order without hesitation and called her ex a number of increasingly unflattering things—all while crowding Trowa against the door. 

Trowa could admit that Christine was attractive: slender and curved, with a soft face framed by softer, curly blonde hair.  He supposed he could maybe understand where she was coming from.  She was probably bitter, probably lonely, maybe even a little scared.  Maybe she needed a relationship as either proof of moving on, or for the more practical purposes of having someone at her side.  Maybe she was being a little desperate about it, but people did desperate things to protect themselves.  Trowa would know.

He didn’t, however, appreciate her almost aggressive attempts to get him into her apartment.  He didn’t like the constant offers of tea, coffee, wine, whatever would bring him inside for “just a few minutes.”  And he certainly didn’t like the flash of her too dark, too familiar eyes when she traced the contours of his body or face, or the smile that was all white teeth and a tiny flick of pink tongue.

Trowa didn’t like her.  Trowa sort of hated her, if only because she was uncomfortably familiar. 

Unfortunately, that wasn’t a legitimate reason to ignore her.

Trowa wasn’t the head of a one-person maintenance department.  Tracey was, and Tracey had never gotten pathetically tangled with a terrorist.  Tracey had never thought that extortion and psychotic sadism were acceptable because he was that pathetic and desperate for affection.  Tracey wasn’t _that_ weak,.  So he had to go downstairs and see if Christine’s door was screeching.  It probably was.  Whatever Christine called him always ended up being actually broken when he showed up.  He would go and blink when she purred her thanks, smile tensely when she invited him in, and maybe blush and shuffle backwards if she tried stroking his arm again.

He had a can of lithium grease under the sink.  It was fine for simple joints.  If he took it down just before work tomorrow, Trowa might be able to get away without looking like he was running. 

Trowa leaned over again and pressed the nearest button.  _“Message deleted.  You have no new messages.  Message log.  You have no messages.”_

The machine quieted.  Trowa sat back against the armrest as the apartment was slowly suffocated with the quiet.  Then the restlessness descended.

Trowa pressed his injured foot against his hip and dug into the sore flesh, laying his head back as he searched for sharp, mind-blanking pain.  He needed it.  He needed a distraction, _any_ distraction, that would shut his mind up.  Thanks to his foot, his already limited choices were restricted further.  Trowa couldn’t walk or run or attempt handstands on the boardwalk rail and still expect to work tomorrow.  And days off were so much worse; there were too many hours for his brain to titter and nag and mock when he didn’t have nine hours at the store to distract him.

He needed pain.  He needed _something_ , because he didn’t want to lie in bed all night, foot throbbing and grinding his teeth as his head reminded him of how stupid he was.  How stupid he _is_.  Stupid, weak, pathetic, worthless, freak—

Trowa gave the flesh in his hands a hard twist.  For one brief second, his mind was quiet.  His foot jerked in his hands, slipping off his hip.  The heel grazed his crouch, and his mind went quiet for almost two.

He had been avoiding _that_ option.  Trowa had to admit, though, that his mind was never quieter than when it was clawing out of the white haze after orgasm. 

_It’s never crueler, either._   If that got him to sleep, though.  Even for just a couple of hours.  And Trowa could find something to distract himself when he woke up.

It was a viable, if not desperate, option.  Trowa was tired, and desperate. 

Trowa released his foot slowly and let his leg drift away from his thighs.  Staring at the ceiling, he slithered down against the armrest until his head rested back on the couch cushions.  He was just too tall for the couch.  He spent several minutes (too many minutes) trying to feel comfortable.  Eventually, he settled for propping his injured foot up on the other armrest and letting his left dangle over the floor.  His hands waited at his sides, picking at his jeans and the cushions, waiting for the vice around his chest to ease. 

It didn’t.

The mocking had already started.  It was barely a whisper.  Trowa made his hands move, bringing them sideways up his thighs.  A faint, almost pleasant tickle, trailed after his fingers. The whisper started to quiet.  Trowa moved his fingers in slow circles, pulling gently at the skin beneath the black denim, shifting when the almost imperceptible pleasure started to ebb. 

The tops of his thighs numbed quickly to the pleasure.  Trowa let his fingers drift back around the outside of his thighs, feeling nothing.  Trowa’s fingers slid back up, hesitated, and then continued in.  He brushed over inseams and he felt a stronger flick of pleasure lick up his center. 

Suddenly Trowa flinched.  His fingers retreated and clenched over his stomach.  A low, irritated growl escaped his throat.  

He almost wished that Fahd— _no_ —Kader— _No._ —the mercenaries— _No!_ —that _someone_ had taken their time.  That _someone_ had wrung pleasure out of him that weren’t always connected to a cock up his ass.  He might be able to touch himself then.  He might have a couple of hints.  This might not feel so awkward and frustrating.

Trowa ground his teeth.  It was a pathetic thing to wish for.  This was his body; no one knew it better.  No one could show him what was pleasant or painful.  His body already knew.  Trowa could find those places, if he could get his fingers moving again.

Trowa forced his fingers to straighten and then pluck at the edge of his shirt.  He bit his lip as they slithered beneath the hem and onto his stomach.  They brushed against stiff, scratch fabric.  Trowa’s brow furrowed for a moment.  _Right.  The corset._   Trowa released his lip and sighed.  He could take it off.  He should take it off.  It would only take a minute. 

Trowa dropped the hem over his fingers. 

It took Trowa much longer to move his fingers this time.  This was turning into a dumber, more frustrating decision by the minute.  The whisper, now more like a soft chuckle, agreed.  Trowa was not ready for that.  Eventually, though, stubbornness won over frustration and distaste.  H just wasn’t able to _look_ at his hands as they twitched back towards his jeans.  Trowa pressed his head back into the cushion and stared hard at a particularly long crack in the ceiling as his fingers unbutton and unzipped his fly.

His hand slipped beneath denim and pressed against warm skin.  _“You never struck me as the panty-less typ_ _e,”_ Kader purred in the back of his head.  Trowa flinched.  He glared at the ceiling.  _I’m not a panty-less type.  I’m not a type.  I’m not listening, I’m not listening._ It wasn’t important.  It didn’t matter.  And the fact that Trowa had to hear it three more times before he could make his hand move meant absolutely nothing.

His cock was unfamiliar to his touch: a thin, flaccid anomaly on a body he otherwise knew intimately.  The flesh was warm, though, and smooth like other, better known parts.  When he ran a fingertip slowly along its surface, there was a spike of pleasure that lingered longer than others had.  When he did it again, the pleasure swelled. 

Trowa laid his palm against himself.  The skin warmed and swelled slowly beneath his fingers.  Trowa’s fingers spread and slid down either side of his cock.  He curled and flexed his fingers, pulling gently at the sensitive skin.  Trowa breathed a soft, half-pleased sigh through his nose.  When he was a little hard, Trowa lifted his hips some and eased his jeans down with his free hand.  Just a little, to keep the zipper from scraping against him.

The couch cushions scratched pleasantly against his rear.

Trowa stared up at the ceiling as he touched himself.  Tension melted more into a low, pleasant heat with every stroke of his fingers.  Every few strokes, he brought his hands a little further down his stiffening cock, until his fingers nudged his sack.  His nails scraped the skin.  Trowa’s gaze slipped momentarily out of focus.  He pushed his jeans further down his legs.

Distantly, Trowa thought he probably looked ridiculous: head back; legs splayed; one hand tucked behind his back to push his jeans down; the other wrapped around the base of his cock, squeezing.  Most of him, however, didn’t care.  No one was around.  The likelihood of someone forcing his door, or Muller needing to use the master key, was so small it was practically negligible.  It wasn’t important.  The low heat building his stomach, that was important.  The way his body was thrumming with unusual pleasure, the way he could feel his pulse in his hand and his heart in his chest, the way his mind was blissfully silent.  Those things were important right now.

Trowa stroked himself from base to tip.  He let his fingers linger at the head, thumb brushing over the slit.  He spread of a bead of sticky wetness over his skin.  Trowa shuddered and pulled the moisture back down the length of his cock.  He pushed and pulled at his jeans, the fabric stubbornly stopping short of his knees.  Trowa shifted his hips.  His jeans barely slithered down an inch.  Trowa let out a frustrated huff.  It would be easier if he let go of himself and pulled his knees close.  Then he could grab and rip his jeans off.  Except that it wasn’t easier.  His hand was hopelessly attached, stroking a little faster with every pass.  Letting go would take strength of will that could douse the heat and the silence entirely. Trowa wasn’t sure he would be able to get it back.

So Trowa twisted his left leg.  He jerked it left and right, drawing it up and out of the jeans by slow inches.  His knee flashed briefly at the bottom of his vision, nearly drawing Trowa’s eyes away from the ceiling.  Bringing his head forward, however, would tighten his throat and Trowa was already having a little trouble breathing.  His knee was close enough to constrict his already constricted abdomen.  But then his foot escaped the waist band of his jeans.  Trowa curled his toes around it and pushed.  His jeans tangled briefly around his right knee.  But finally, Trowa kicked them off.  They crumpled noisily to the floor.  

Free, Trowa let his left leg fall back to the floor.  His knee slipped below the edge of the couch, opening him further.  He felt a flick of cool air, a draft from somewhere, curl around his weeping cock and lower.  Trowa shivered and panted, breath rushing from his parted lips.  Trowa shifted his foot on the armrest, planting it firmly, digging in with his toes when his knee fell open and landed against the back of the couch. 

A drop dribbled down, curving back until it slid across his entrance.  Trowa’s hips twitched up into his strokes.

Trowa’s free hand slid up from behind his back, his fingers tugging at his rocking rear before skating over his sensitive hips and pelvis.  His fingers lingered near his cock, stroking the base whenever his other hand pulled up towards the head.  Then they dipped between his thighs.  They rolled his balls between his fingers, wringing a quiet groan from Trowa’s throat.  His fingers drifted further, running over his slit.  Trowa rubbed the wet opening, circling, nudging his wet fingers against a tiny nub that jerked his hips up with a spark of new pleasure.  He flicked and pressed at it until his hips bucked and his eyes slid closed. 

_You.  Are. **Sick**._

The voice—his voice—exploded in his ear.  Trowa’s hands seized around himself for one, agonizing moment before darting away.  He flailed, trying to escape the revulsion ringing in his ears.  The couch slipped out from under him.  Everything went quiet when his head hit the floor. 

But not for long.  Trowa rolled onto his side, gripping his head against the sneering mantra and the bright, blossoming pain.  He tried to focus on the sharp pain spreading out from his temple and blackening his vision.  But the black eventually receded.  The floor focused enough that he could count the swirls in the grain.  The mantra grew, swelling to a hissing, bitter snarl.

_You are fucking sick.  Disgusting.  Perverted._

Trowa pressed his hands against his temples and then his temple against the wood.  He was rewarded with a too-short burst of pain that barely even dampened the sneering.

_What is **wrong** with you?_

He wasn’t brave enough to smack his head against the floor.  He wasn’t brave enough to face unconsciousness.

_Perverted fuck._

Trowa twisted his injured foot into the floor.  He beat it against the wood.  It barely hurt at all.

_Freak._

Trowa let out a bitter, choked snarl and rolled onto his stomach.  He forced his hands away from his head and pressed them against the floor.  Trowa’s legs worked uselessly, slipping and crumpling as he tried to get to his feet.  Trowa beat his fist against the floor.  The pain grounded him long enough to get his legs beneath him.  Trowa stood and swayed.  He caught himself on the armrest as his body collapsed.   His knees spilled openly awkwardly as the fall jerked to a stop. 

Wet trickled down the inside of his thigh.

Trowa pushed off from the couch.  He stumbled towards the bathroom, the pain in his head and foot distant and minor against the rush of silent vitriol.  Still he clung to them.  Fix his foot, bind it up.  Check for cuts, check for concussion.  Distract himself with maintenance.  When that was over, he would work.  He would take something apart and put it back together.  See how it worked.  Not the fridge, he needed that.  But maybe a lamp or the microwave.  Or the piano.  He had never seen the inside of a piano.  Take it apart, figure it out, put it back together.  Items were easy.  Break it and fix it.  He could do that.  He was good at fixing things.  Just not himself. 

Trowa tumbled into the wall.  He sank against it.  His fingers dug into the ugly paint.  A second line of wet trickled beside the first.  Trowa shuddered and knocked his head against the wall before pushing himself up.

Fix the foot.  Break the piano, fix the piano.  Fix it.  Fix what he could.  That was all he could do.  He couldn’t fix what he wanted, but he could fix the rest.  Fix it, fix it and make his head _shut up_. 

Trowa yanked open the bathroom door.  His hand was already flicking on the light when he realized that _that_ was the last thing he wanted to see. 

Right across from the door was the worst possible place for a mirror.  Worse now when he was half-dressed and swaying, flushed and hurting.  Trowa watched himself slump against the doorframe.  His eyes ran over his reflection.  The mussed hair and flushed face.  Skin wet with sweat, lips with saliva.  His shirt still was hiked up around his chest.  The corset peeked out from beneath it.  And then there was his cock: small, half-hard and dripping pre-cum.  And there were the trails of moisture, running in messy rivulets down his thighs.       

He followed a new drop with his eyes as it dribbled down his skin. 

_Freak._

Trowa’s lips pulled back into panting snarl.  _Freak._   He lurched away from the door.  _Freak_. The shampoo was on the edge of the tub.  Trowa snatched it up.  _Freak._

He couldn’t even see the mirror through the wet haze. 

“Freak!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was both surprisingly easy and surprisingly difficult to write.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tracey has an unexpected run in, and Wufei gets ready to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapters: language, mentions of unintentional self harm

David came into the break room swearing, leg swinging out as soon as the door was closed.  His foot  into the corner of the lockers.  Trowa had been changing his shoes; with a lace in each hand, he stopped and watched David hop up and down.              

“Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure kicking the lockers is going to help,” he said slowly.  David glared at him before huffing and throwing himself into one of the chairs at the break table.               

“Maybe not, but the lockers can’t fire me for kicking for them.”            

“Managers?”             

“ _Manager_.”             

Trowa didn’t need to ask which one.  “Oh.”             

“Fucking hound’s out to get me,” he snapped.  Trowa nodded slowly to his shoes as he tied them.  “She’s got my blood in her nose and she’s not going to leave me alone until I up and quit.”             

“She can’t do that.”             

“Oh yes she can.  You haven’t been here long enough.  If Holly doesn’t like you, she’ll get rid of you.  One way or another.”             

Holly didn’t like Trowa.  As far as he could tell, Holly didn’t like _anyone_ , but she wasn’t trying to force him out or make him more miserable than anyone else (and Trowa dared her to try).  Only David thought that she kept personal vendettas, this time against him,.             

Considering how much she screwed with his shifts, he might be right.            

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal,” he said.            

“When has that ever been an issue?”             

“Okay, then why is Greg still here?  She hates Greg more than anyone, why hasn’t she shoved him out?”             

“‘Cause she can’t.  Greg’s the last of the union, and as long as he’s here, the union rules apply to him.  Holly can’t just kick him out.  And she deals with that bitterness by tormenting the rest of us."             

“Including you."             

“Especially me.”             

Trowa tied off the bows before swinging his legs down from the bench.  By then, David had gotten up and was heading towards his locker.  He glared at it before attacking the lock on his with his fingers.              

It was a shame that he and David rarely worked the same shifts.  David was someone Tracey, and maybe even Trowa, could have gotten along with.  He was unassuming without being meek.  He was friendly but not smothering.  He kept his emotions small and his reactions smaller (anything having to do with Holly being the glaring exception).  But they didn’t work the same shifts; they rarely worked overlapping ones.  Trowa came in bright and early most days, and David wouldn’t come grumbling back into the break room until almost five, right when Trowa was getting ready to leave.              

It wasn’t always that way, David had told him sometime during his first week.  David used to have to beg for night shifts, apparently.  The night Trowa had first come into the store had been David’s first nightshift in nearly three weeks.  Now he couldn’t get off nights, which was a problem now that Stockton was finally planning on offering Masters work in his field.  Most of the required courses were evening ones.            

If she was trying to make David miserable enough to quit, though, it wasn’t working.  Separated from the “decent” coworkers as he was, David still reached out to Trowa every time they crossed.  And David couldn’t even consider a Masters until he saved enough to make loans a buffer rather than a necessity.  David was going to be working register for another year at least.              

Watching David’s last day, which he described to Trowa in detail and with such fondness, would be nice.  He would love to see Holly’s face when David flipped her off.  It was a shame, then, that Trowa wasn’t going to be around that long.  Trowa was going to be gone before the end of next month, if he had his way.  If certain conditions were met.

_If I stop falling off the railing._                

“I can’t wait to get out of here,” David muttered, yanking open the locker door.  The metal shuddered as the door banged against its neighbor.  “One more year.  Less than a year.  Bitch isn’t going to scare me off.  I’m going to waltz right out on her shift.  Two weeks’ notice my ass.”               

“That’ll be something to see.”               

“Damn right it will.  It’s going to be glorious.”               

Trowa picked up his coat from the wood beside him and slipped it on slowly.  “Call me before you do, so I can be there.”               

David paused, denim jacket dangling from his fingers.  He looked over at Trowa, eyes narrowed and lips pursed slightly.  He waited a moment before letting his mouth slip into his usual one-sided smile.               

“You sure you want to make that trip?  New York to New Jersey is a couple of hours, man.  You might miss something important.  One of those big book signings or drop parties.  You really want to sacrifice that to watch an ex-coworker make an ass of himself?”               

The only reason Trowa was ever going to set foot in a publishing house or a drop party when he finally reached New York would be to slip something out of or into someone’s pocket.  And that wouldn’t happen often.  Not many publishers got on marketers’ bad sides.              

Of course, David didn’t know that.  David didn’t know that Trowa didn’t plan on hitting New York until next summer.  He would drift through Seattle first, maybe loiter around San Francisco, and then linger in Detroit for the last few months.  Their undergrounds were smaller, work almost nonexistent, but they were there and quiet enough that he could build a reputation without reigniting certain people’s interest in him. 

_If there’s been any interest from anyone at all._ Trowa had to keep reminding himself that the month-and-a-half of silence was a good thing.

David didn’t know any of that.  David didn’t even know that Trowa existed.  David knew Tracey and Tracey planned on getting sweet, begging invitations from the literary circles of New York City.  It wasn’t money he was after—although even Tracey would admit it was more than a decent perk—but prestige.  Contemporary literature bloomed best, and wilted the fastest, in New York, and Tracey was too good and too ambitious to do anything but blossom.  Ocean City was just a pause: a moment designed for him to save up enough money for the hole-in-the-wall he would have to survive in until a publisher begged him for his book. 

Once he had written it. 

That, though, was almost a minor detail.  Tracey had so many ideas; it was just a matter of straightening them into coherency and putting brilliance onto paper.  The fact that it was difficult meant that it was worth it.  

Trowa smiled some as he buttoned up his coat.  “You mean do I want to sacrifice the money.  I’ll be living in a hole, with my luck,” he said, with a modest ease that didn’t quite reveal that it was fear and not play.  “The round trip will probably cost me rent and food for a month.” 

“It’ll cost you a week’s worth of designer coffee, tops.  You’re going to be somebody by the time I get out of here.” 

“Yup, a freeloader.” 

“Richest damn freeloader in New York, with how much you write.” 

Trowa hadn’t written a page, and Tracey could barely finish one. “Maybe after you get your Masters.”

“You’ll never get published if you wait on me.” 

“Study faster.”

“Switch shifts with me and I’ll get right on that.”

He shook his head and stood.  “You working tomorrow?”

“Yup.  You?”

“No,” Trowa couldn’t even pretend to be happy about it.  “I’ll be in on Saturday, though.”

“Sweet.  I’m looking forward to our five minutes.”

Trowa nodded and headed for the door, his dark red apron t rolled and tucked beneath his arm.  He nearly made it.  Somewhere between the bench and the door, though, David noticed something.

“Hey,” David called, his hands behind his neck as he tied on the apron.  “You okay?”

He blinked. “Yeah.  Why?”

David’s eyes narrowed, running slowly over Trowa’s face.  His mouth dipped into a frown.

“Nothing,” he said finally, tying off the knot and letting his hands down.  “You’re looking a little rundown, is all.”

Trowa knew exactly how he looked, and “rundown” wasn’t it.  He had broken his week-long streak yesterday, with a quick glance in the restroom mirror while washing his hands during his break.  Once he had, Trowa hadn’t been able to look away.  Even he had to admit that he looked bad: pale and thin and sick.  His skin was stretched tight over his cheeks and jaws.  There were dark bruises under his eyes from lack of sleep.  His eyes themselves were dull.

He was wearing himself down.  But Trowa had already known that.  He saw it in every bit of muscle he lost from his hands and arms, muscle that wasn’t coming back no matter how hard he pushed himself.  He felt it in the hunger and lack of appetite that warred constantly, and the way his muscles hurt and his limbs shook sometimes even after the smallest efforts. 

Trowa was driving himself into the ground, but there wasn’t much to be done about it.  He needed to leave; he’d take care of himself after that.

He managed a sheepish smile, running his free hand over the back of his neck.  “Oh.  That.  I just haven’t been sleeping much.”

If David didn’t believe him, he made very little sign.  His mouth twitched into a lopsided smile as he tied the apron around his waist.

“Hate to break it to you, but sleep is kind of important.”

“I know, but I’ve got something right now.”

“Got something?”

“A spark.  I got it, well it’s got me, and at night, it’s just, it’s kind of incessant and I can’t let it get away.”

“You might want to.  You look half-dead.”

Trowa hadn’t accidentally caught himself in a mirror yet today, so he didn’t really know.  He _felt_ worse than yesterday. 

“You don’t understand,” Trowa said, trying to give Tracey that infectious, anxious excitement he always got when talking about writing.  His voice sounded thin and tired in his ears.  “You can’t just drop it.  You’ve got to run with it until it runs out on its own.  If you drop it, then it’s gone and you’ll never get it back.”

“Can’t you make it work and get some sleep?”

“It doesn’t work like that.” 

“Are you sure?"

Trowa rolled his eyes.  “I think I know how it works.”

“I’m just saying that lack of sleep for, how many days have you had this ‘spark’ thing?”

“A couple.  It’s really not a big deal.”

“Sure it’s not.  Like I said, a couple of days with no sleep—”

“I did sleep.  Just not a lot.”  Two inconsecutive hours on average, if Trowa was doing his math right.

“—fine, lack of sleep, doesn’t really help with performance.  Just saying.”

“I’m not an athlete.  It’s not the same.  Besides, I am sleeping, and I am going to sleep more soon.  I just, I have to get this out first.  I’m so close, I know I am.”

“I certainly hope so,” David said.  “So you’re getting somewhere with this ‘spark’ thing?”

“Everywhere.  See there’s this girl, Eudora, and she—”

“Trace,” David warned.  He was usually indulgent when it came to Tracey’s passion, until that anxious excitement turned a little manic.  David’s distaste for writing discussions was likely a direct result of a very tiring conversation Trowa had forced himself to have with David in the first week.  Trowa was more than happy that David ended up developing an aversion to them.  Trowa wouldn’t have been able to handle holding a second one-sided, in-depth, writer’s rant.

Tracey, however, could, so Trowa snapped his mouth shut and let his eyes slip to the side.  “Right.  Sorry.”

“Nah,” David sighed. “I’m sorry.  I just can’t stand here and listen to you get all watery-eyed over your new baby.  I’ll end up clocking in late.”

“And Holly would love that.”

“Yeah, she would,” David muttered, closing his locker.  He sighed, shook his head, and hurried to the door.  Trowa stepped back and then followed him down the hall.  He kept a step or two behind David, just so that he didn’t look too much like he was sulking.

“Look,” David said when they reached the door to the floor. “There’s an open mic coming up right?  At the university?”

Probably.  They seemed to be bi-monthly; Trowa was running out of legitimate excuses to miss them. 

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I’ll come this time, if you’ve got something good.  You’ll be there right?”

Only if Trowa failed to come up with a very good excuse.

“Yeah.”

David smiled.  “Sweet.  Come up with something good, then.  You can tell me all about it later.”

Trowa had a feeling that some of the apartment’s pipes were going to burst.  Soon.

Trowa waited until he was in the parking lot to pinch the bridge of his nose.  Even Tracey got headaches so he didn’t let himself worry too much about slipping in public.  But he didn’t linger.  Shifting the bundled apron to his other arm, Trowa walked out of the parking lot.  He continued for a block, head down and ignoring the few people milling about in the early evening, before making his turn: a left instead of the usual right. 

He was half way to the pharmacy before Trowa realized it wasn’t an option.  His skin tone wasn’t unusual, but the sheer size and depth of the bruises would make cosmetics expensive and complicated.  By the time he managed to blend the foundation around his eyes with the rest of his face and neck, he would have used too much to keep the coverage subtle.  And as laid-back as David was, Trowa was sure that he wouldn’t ignore a sudden decision to wear that much foundation. 

Trowa wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to do it, anyway.

He had to do something, though.  First Greg, and now David.  And that wasn’t including the other looks Trowa got.  Holly’s greedy curiosity.  Cass’ mounting concern.  Christine’s slowly-building disinterest and then disgust.  Trowa was letting weakness get the better of him.  Weakness couldn’t be covered up with make-up.  If he wasn’t careful, he was going to expose himself in the worst possible way.  Again.  And he wasn’t ready for those consequences.

Trowa wasn’t ready to leave.  He had no system and a body that was struggling with the simplest activities.  When he could stay on the railing, he could leave.

That wasn’t going to be tonight, for sure.  _And with the way I’m going, I’ll be lucky if I can run next month._   He needed to do something.  Fast.

Trowa hurried to the pharmacy.  He lingered tjere, wandering up and down the aisles.  He steered well away from the cosmetics; they would do him no favors.  But he wasn’t happy with having to pace the supplement aisle, either.  “Natural” or not, he had enough experience with sleeping pills.  The only thing that put the bottles in his hands was the assumption that over-the-counter sleep aids couldn’t be that strong.

Trowa walked back to the apartment slowly, bag in one hand, apron in the other, rearranging his evening schedule.  By the time he was at his front door, Trowa had decided that running would probably be best.  Long distance, endurance-draining running, punctuated with walking, stretching, and, if he felt up to it, some balance training.  Spread out over a couple of hours, it might exhaust him enough for drug-assisted sleep.   It probably wouldn’t (nothing was), but it was something to try.

And if that didn’t, tomorrow night he might try alcohol.

Trowa flung the apron on the couch he had been avoiding and dropped the small plastic bag of pills on the counter.  He turned and headed towards refrigerator.  If he was going for endurance, he needed food.  Trowa’s stomach lurched painfully at the thought.  Trowa looked through his oddly empty refrigerator before deciding on the pasta he had attempted the night before.  His stomach twisted with want and revulsion as he pulled it out.

He managed to spoon a reasonable amount onto a plate and put it into the microwave before his throat really started to close.  Trowa splashed it with a little garlic and oil instead of sauce—he hadn’t had sauce in weeks, but oil was always there and the garlic had been turning—and found some bread that wasn’t entirely stale.  The warm smell of wheat made his mouth water.  He ate three forkfuls, standing at the counter, before his stomach heaved.  The fourth bite tasted of bile.  Trowa pushed the plate away and forced down a bite of bread.  After the third bite, his stomach settled a little.

The pasta ended up in the trash.

Trowa nibbled on the last of the bread as he moved from kitchen to couch to bedroom.  His stomach still rolled, but the bread stayed.  He started to feel a little better.  By the time he made it to his dresser, Trowa almost felt kind of good.  He held the bread between his teeth, wearing at it carefully, as he pulled out loose jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, and then stuffed the last quarter of it into his mouth while he changed.

He was still chewing when he tugged the edge of his shirt down over the corset and hunted for a hair-tie.  He had bought a pack of simple ones nearly two weeks ago, after the couch.  His hair was just the right length now that it went in all the wrong places when he ran or trained or did anything more strenuous than moving boxes and stocking shelves.  The knot at the back of his head was uncomfortable, but Trowa preferred it to having hair in his mouth.  He hated the taste of dye.  

Unfortunately, Trowa wasn’t very good about keeping track of his hair-ties.  He was always in such a hurry to release the pressure at the back of his head that he ripped the tie out whenever and wherever he could.  So the hair-tie ended up wherever it pleased.  Trowa found them everywhere all the time—except when he was actually looking for them.

He finally found one on the lip of the bathroom sink.  Trowa had already been looking for five minutes; he made his headache even worse by pulling his hair back too tight.

Trowa was a little more careful the second time he pulled his hair back, even taking the time to brush out the knots before he twisted the elastic around the ponytail.  He ran his fingers over the tight hair, checking for bumps in the blank space of wood over the sink out of pure, stupid habit.  He hadn’t gotten around to replacing the mirror.  He didn’t plan to.  Trowa didn’t want one, and he certainly didn’t need it.  He did nothing more complicated than dye his hair, and he had done that enough to make a mirror unnecessary.  Fading was always a concern, of course, but Trowa already knew that he could go a couple of weeks before the difference was noticeable.  He tried not to let it go past three.

Besides, there were plenty of mirrors and other suitably reflective surfaces to torture himself with everywhere else.  The least he could do was spare himself at home.

Until he left, anyway.  When he left, Trowa would have to replace it.  He tried not to think about that.

Trowa downed a quick glass of water before heading outside, stuffing his keys safely into his pocket once the door was locked.  The night was cool but heavy, the air thick with impending rain.  He frowned.  It had rained last night, and the night before.  And that day.  He had been taking each day’s weather as it came—since Trowa didn’t have a television and was still actively avoiding the temptation of the internet—but that didn’t stop it from feeling like an oddly long stretch of rain.  Trowa had no idea if the east coast had “a rainy season.”  It would be problematic if it did.  _I better find a paper tonight.  Or buy a radio._

A radio would be nice.  It was much less tempting than the internet, if he stayed away from certain frequencies.  It would be a wonderful distraction from the crushing silence.  He wasn’t exactly sure if Tracey would have one, but it wouldn’t be too difficult to give him an excuse.  Inspiration or some such nonsense.

Trowa took his time getting to the boardwalk, changing his stride and pacing at intervals to make the walk a decent warm-up.  He started working his arms and shoulders when he was a few blocks away.  By the time he was up the ramp, Trowa felt loose enough and a little warm. 

The boardwalk was mostly empty.  He bounced on the balls of his feet, looking down the dimly lit planks at the shadows of the people walking nearest him and the darker shapes of those still lingering in the better light.  The business part of boardwalk, with its few but popular year-round shops and restaurants, stayed open until nearly ten.  That part of the boardwalk, however, was short: only two or three miles out of the boardwalk’s ten.  It was directly in the middle, but it still left Trowa with about three or four miles to occupy himself with until everything shut down.

By then, he might be up for some practice in the sand, or at least feel comfortable enough to try running the rail. 

Trowa sighed.  He did some last minute stretching, just to be on the safe side, and took a long deep breath.  The salt was bracing.  He started off at a slow jog.

Trowa sped up to a normal after the first mile.  The shops and restaurants, with their brighter lights and milling people, came up at the end of the second mile.  Trowa cut a wide arc around a couple ambling towards it and started his third mile going back the way he came.  He started running halfway through it.  By the fourth mile, he was running close to his usual speed.  At four and a half, he was pushing himself.  Right at the fifth, Trowa had to stop and lean over the rail before he was sick.

He wasn’t sick, thankfully, possibly only because Trowa had hoisted himself up onto the railing and put pressure on his stomach.  When his stomach stopped heaving, he eased himself down to the wood.  Cursing, he shoved his head between his knees.  The vertigo persisted until Trowa stopped himself from hissing through his teeth every time he breathed.  When his head stopped spinning, Trowa lifted it.  He glared briefly up and down the boardwalk before falling back.  He lay on the wood, glaring at the cloudy, dark sky and choking on the salt air for nearly five minutes before his chest stopped clenching.

Trowa beat his fist against the wood.  His hand slipped.  Trowa felt the sharp prick of a splinter.

Once he sat up without swaying and started picking at the wood in his hand, Trowa realized that he had to pace himself better.  He was going to end this training session much earlier than he wanted otherwise.  He needed to slow down, take more breaks, ease himself back into it.  He needed to take his time.

Trowa yanked the splinter out with his teeth, grinning bitterly at the pain.

Leaning back against the railing, Trowa waited for his body to cool, watching the boardwalk and listening to the ocean.  Sometimes, he would glance over his shoulder and watch the swell and pull of the water, but for the most part Trowa watched the last few people out on this end.  There was an elderly couple, on their way home mostly likely, who gave him a disgusted look.  There was late-night walker with his music up too loud.  There was a woman with a cellphone and a dog.  After the woman and her dog passed, Trowa eased himself to his feet.  He felt cool enough and steady enough.

He stretched again and turned.  Trowa had jogged only a few steps when he heard a sharp hiss and a bark.

A cat streaked past.  Behind him, Trowa heard the click of nails on wood, followed by a high, sharp gasp.  He turned just in time to see the woman scrambling to her knees and a bounding, barking dog.  Its leash trailed behind it as it pounded after the cat.  It would pass just below his waist.  Trowa’s hand darted out as the dog ran past.

He realized, as he got his fingers around the nylon, that while the dog was not large enough to pull him over normally, it was running and Trowa was leaning.  He managed to twist himself so that he landed on his back.  The fall knocked the wind out of him.  His weight knocked the wind out of the dog.  It yelped as the leash went tight.

“Jazz!  Oh my god, I am so sorry, sir, are you okay?”

Trowa found his vision suddenly full of face and hair as the woman dropped over him.  She couldn’t decide which was more important: helping him up or wrestling the leash from his fingers.  Trying to do both kept her uncomfortably close.  Trowa shoved the leash at her.

“You dumb dog,” she hissed when she had the leash.  She slid back with it, giving Trowa an opening to scramble back a few inches.  “I’m really sorry, she’s never like that.  I don’t—”

Trowa grit his teeth.  “She never chases cats?”

“Well, no, I mean she barks, but—”

“You might want to look up from your phone a little more,” he spat as he sat up.  “Not everyone’s going to go for the leash.”

“That, that was a really impressive catch.”

Trowa glanced at her.  She was crouched near him, the leash wound around her hand enough to bring the dog, Jazz, close to her side.  Jazz whined and butted her head against the woman’s leg.  When she didn’t so much as reach to pat the top of her head, Jazz huffed and stretched out beside her.

Trowa sighed. “Not really,” he said, running a hand over the back of his head.  The ponytail had been shoved up the back of his skull.  Trowa pulled the tie out carefully.  He flinched as it yanked out a few hairs.  “It’s too dark to be impressive.”

Her eyes followed the dark shift of his hair falling around his neck. “No way,” she said.  She twisted the nylon leash between her hands.  “I’m really sorry.  She really doesn’t normally run like that, but you’re right.  I should’ve been paying attention.”

“It’s fine,” he said, because Tracey would.  He was mostly fine.  It was an accident.  The woman was a stranger he would probably never see again.  There was no reason to snap at her.  “I shouldn’t tell you how to walk your dog.  It just—”

“It hurt, right?  I heard you hit the wood.  It sounded painful.”

Painful was an understatement.  He was lucky he didn’t hit his head. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“Can I make it up to you?”

Trowa stiffened.  “You don’t have to.”

“No, no, I insist.  You really didn’t have to do that, and you’re being way nicer than you should be.  You could’ve gotten really hurt.”

“No, really, it’s—”

“At least let me buy you dinner?  A slice of pizza or something?  I know nothing’s open right now but maybe tomorrow?  Or whenever you’re free.”

Trowa should have been more disturbed by her enthusiasm than he was.  Tracey would have been at least a little put off.  There was something familiar, however, about her flustering: the way her words tumbled over each other; how the small, sharp breaths she took lifted her shoulders; how her fingers played and twisted the leash.  Trowa watched them twist.  He could barely see how pale they were.  Out of nowhere, while the leash twirled around her pale index fingers, he found himself wondering if she was blonde or brunette.  Was it white gold or a darker yellow like captured sunshine?  Was it brown, like chocolate, or coffee, or warm, breathing wood?  Was there a subtle play of colors with the right light, or was it solid and constant?

Maybe she had blue eyes.  Blue was genetically popular in the United States, wasn’t it?  Would they be solid, or would there be touches of other colors?  Green to make them warm and welcoming, or purple to make them mischievous?

Trowa should have been more disturbed.  He should have run, without acknowledgement, without caring about how suspicious or cowardly it made him look.  It was dangerous.  It was temptation, and he had been working so hard to avoid temptation, to finally separate.  He needed to leave.

“I’m free tomorrow,” he said.

*-----*-----*

“You didn’t have to do this,” Wufei said for the third time, which was two times too many.  Zechs, hands folded over the top of the steering wheel, smiled a bit.

“I wanted to,” he said. Wufei nodded once before he turned and looked out the window.  Oddly enough, Zechs didn’t sigh.

Wufei knew he was not exactly patient when it came to people’s personality quirks, but he liked to think he was perceptive.  He understood why Relena constantly inserted herself into her brother’s life; he understood why Duo loathed silence and Heero craved it; most importantly, though, he understood why Zechs was occasionally overcome with a sudden, irritating need to take care of him.

Sometimes. 

Wufei would admit that he didn’t always see the difference between caring and coddling.  Sometimes (often really) he didn’t see the difference at all.  He couldn’t.  There had been one too many sneers when he stepped out of a cockpit; one too many scoffs when he was staring down the barrel of a gun, as shooter and victim both.  Too many watery eyes, too many quivering lips and twisting fingers, too much pity.  They—the looks and tears and sneers and the subtle jabs at his abilities—made every single act of kindness now a slight against his autonomy.

Unless it came from Zechs.

No one wanted to believe a child was capable of chaos.  No one wanted to believe someone barely legal to drink could kill dozens of soldiers in a handful of minutes.  No one wanted to believe that someone who hadn’t graduated college, or even _high school_ , was better than they, with their twenty-plus years of experience, could hope to be.  Even Une got a strange strained expression on her face sometimes, because he was eighteen and on her payroll.  She was just a few years older but still, it rankled for her.

Except for Zechs.  There was so much appreciation in Zechs’ smile when Wufei knew something or did something he couldn’t.  There was soft pride when it came to Wufei’s past—not the blood, but the skill and the determination, the growth and experience war had given Wufei.  There was overflowing pride when it came to their work.  Any jealousy between them was playful: give-and-take where barbs earned smiles and laughs, improvement and success, sleepless nights and lazy mornings.    

It wasn’t because Zechs was a pilot and saw Wufei as kindred: bred for battle, fed with adrenaline, bathed in blood and oil.  Wufei was, as Zechs told him often, his partner.  His equal.  And in many ways, his better.  _And Zechs so much mine._ It was out of limitless gratitude for the appreciation and untarnished respect that Wufei endeavored to understand Zechs’ need to…care.

He was getting better at it.  A little bit.  Slowly.  At the very least, he wasn’t kicking Zechs out onto the couch as often.  Wufei sighed.

Zechs heard it and misunderstood.  “It would have been inconvenient, you know.  For you and them.”

“Apparently,” he said, not exactly trying to argue.

“You couldn’t have taken a bus.”

“I could have.”

“You would have been late.”  In this area, the distance a car could travel in thirty minutes, with heavy traffic, took local buses at least two hours. 

“Very late,” he agreed.  “And I’m not keen on waking up at five in the morning just to take a bus.”

“No, you’re not.  And a taxi is out of the question.”

“It would have gotten me there on time.”

“On the headquarters’ dime.”

Une was having enough trouble getting funding for the mission.  The higher-ups had barely approved their long, looping flights and a week in a rat-hole motel.  They would probably be more accommodating if she called it “an arrest” like they wanted.  She wouldn’t.  Wufei and the others weren’t upset about the consequences of that. 

“On my dime, then.”

“You don’t even like taxis.”

Wufei _loathed_ taxis.  “I could have driven myself.”

“You’re going to be gone for a week at least.  Who’s going to pay for parking?”

The same party who would pay for the taxi.  While he was okay with paying a grossly-overpriced cab fare once in a while, Wufei wasn’t okay with paying a grossly-overpriced garage fare for seven days. 

“Point taken.”

“And since I can’t drive you to the port, well, this is just easier.”

The “for me” was implied.

Wufei knew how upset Zechs was about being excluded.  He was also Trowa’s friend and colleague.  He had lost just as much sleep as the rest of them: first from worrying about him and then from hunting him down, once they were given permission.  He knew how angry Zechs was at being told to stay home and wait.  Getting Trowa to come home would be difficult.  They all knew that.  How difficult, though, was the question.   They would only know once they found him.  How much did Trowa miss them?  How guilty did he feel?  How much did he need to run?  How far was he willing to go?  What was he willing to do?

They were walking into a dangerous set of unknown variables.  Wufei was walking into it, and Zechs was being told to stay home.  He understood very well why Zechs was upset.  He sympathized.

He was still glad Zechs wasn’t going.

Zechs was Trowa’s friend, but Zechs wasn’t a pilot.  He had flown Tallgeese, in all its variations, beautifully, expertly, but he was still not a _pilot_.  He wasn’t involved in Operation Meteor.  He wasn’t dragged off the streets, out of warehouse or cargo hold, or from a comfortable life, because piloting a suit was a better option, a necessary option, or the only option.   He had never felt the fear or loathing.  He never felt that short, painful moment of bliss when they realized they weren’t alone.  That someone else understood the adrenaline, the pleasure, the pressure, the torture, of every minute of every hour of every day spent in those machines. 

Zechs wasn’t a pilot.  He couldn’t understand Trowa the way they did.  And total understanding, knowing every trick and pain, every strength and weakness, was the only way they would get Trowa to come home.  Wufei had explained that after the order came, once Zechs had stopped.  Zechs accepted it, eventually and begrudgingly. 

And Wufei accepted, begrudgingly, that Zechs needed to feel involved.  Driving him was about the only thing he could do.

Zechs pulled up to the two-story house after a final ten minutes of awkward, uncomfortable silence.  Wufei looked at the house and its dark windows and the empty space in the driveway before turning in his seat.  Zechs stared out the windshield, hands folded once again on the steering wheel.  He didn’t turn off the engine.  It would be too much of a temptation to follow Wufei if he did.

Wufei shifted in his seat, sliding a little closer to the center console between them.  He set his hand on the head of the shifter.  Zechs turned his head.  His eyes drifted down to Wufei’s hand before sliding up his arm to his face.  Wufei continued to look down the empty, quiet street.  From the corner of his eye, he saw Zechs’ mouth twitch.  One of his hands slid off the steering wheel.  It landed lightly on his. 

Wufei turned his hand until the shifter was pressing against his knuckles.  Zechs squeezed his fingers.

“Call,” he said.

Wufei looked at him.  “When?”

“When you leave, when you get there.  At the very least, when you’re coming home.”      

“You can’t meet us at the port.”

“I can meet you in the garage.”  And he would. 

Smiling, Wufei slid across the seat until his hip pressed uncomfortably against the hand-break and shifter.  With his free hand, he reached behind Zechs’ head.  Zechs tied his hair back today.  He needed that personal, momentary bit of control.  Wufei eased the band out of his hair.  He laced his fingers in the long, soft strands, scratching gently at the back of Zechs’ head.  Zechs sighed and closed his eyes, leaning back into the caress.

“I can call every day.”

“You’d hate that.”

“You’d love it.”

“Duo will never shut up.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

Zechs chuckled.  Leaning forward, he rested his forehead against Wufei’s.  “Every other day, then.”

“Promise.”

Zechs laced their fingers.  Wufei turned his head.  Their noses brushed.  Wufei placed a small kiss on the corner of his mouth.  Zechs smiled and squeezed his hand.

And then he let go.  Wufei slid out of the truck, his duffle bag slung across his back.  He stood on the sidewalk until Zechs turned out of sight at the end of the street.  The hair tie was still wrapped loosely around his fingers.  Wufei slipped it around his wrist.

Duo answered the door almost a minute after Wufei had knocked.  Leaning against the frame, and blocking the entrance entirely, he looked Wufei up and down.  Duo’s mouth slipped into an irritating smile: the one that said he thought he had something clever to say.

“No kung fu pants today?”

“For the last time, Maxwell,” he started.  Duo’s smile widened.

“Shredded in the laundry?”

He snorted.  “Along with your cassock.”

“My cassock was blood-stained so I threw it away.  Like two years ago.”

“A shame.  I liked the cassock.  Unlike those riding pants.”

“Hey, I like these pants.”

“That makes one person,” he said, shouldering his way into the house. 

The house was seemed oddly dark and cold, although Wufei didn’t have much to compare it too.  Wufei and Zechs usually hosted their get-togethers; Wufei liked having an excuse to cook and Zechs liked to have an excuse to open his liquor cabinet.   During his few visits here, however, the house had always been bright and warm.  Quatre was used to that particular environment, and Duo was naturally cool-blooded.  Heero and Trowa indulged them. 

_So obviously empty and different._  Wufei caught sight of the two duffle bags waiting at the end of the couch. 

“Where’s Quatre,” he asked, dropping his own on top of them.

“He left almost three hours ago.  He’s probably at the gate by now.”

The protective detail surrounding him had been dropped a week ago, mostly because Duo and Heero had made it very clear that they wouldn’t trust Quatre’s safety with anyone else, nor would they be barred from bringing in Trowa once Heero’s tracers ferreted him out.  Which meant that Quatre would end up tagging along on a mission that involved a rogue agent.  An agent that was his friend.  The higher-ups wanted none of that.  Unfortunately, once he was free of the limitations, Quatre was free to act at his own discretion.

And his own discretion told him to book a flight.  Any flight would do, but he preferred the same one that took Duo, Heero, and Wufei to the United States.

Une hadn’t bothered to advise him against it.  She also hadn’t informed her superiors that it was his intention.  Quatre was an informant still not legitimately recognized by the system; they had no control over him.  Wufei could just imagine her smirk.

“Got it,” he said.  Wufei slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans.  “Heero?”

“Bedroom.  Running last minute traces.”    

Wufei frowned.  “He missed something?”

“Standard backup, he said.  In case Trowa,” he paused and ran a hand over the back of his neck.  “In case he noticed and pulled up.”

That would be unusual, considering how much trouble Heero had had pinning him down.  Trowa had been actively avoiding anything even remotely connected to the internet.  Heero had been reduced to checking video feeds until he figured out which port Trowa had left from and could finally pin his face to an alias through time stamps and sheer luck.

Of course, Trowa could have accessed the internet recently for any number of reasons, the most likely being cabin fever or paranoia.  He had been gone for over a month now, and, if Heero’s data was correct, he was living as a civilian.  A very boring civilian.  Wufei doubted Trowa could go much longer without looking for _something_ to compliment his skills.  Not without going insane, anyway. 

When he did finally access the network, the first thing Trowa would do would be check his tracks. 

“Anything?”

“There’s no swearing, so I’m assuming everything’s green.  Drink?”

“Just water.”

Heero came down when Wufei was halfway through his water.  He was leaning against the table, watching Duo go through a last minute mental checklist by his bag.  Wufei glanced back over his shoulder when he heard the footsteps on the stairs.  Heero stopped on the bottom step, laptop under his arm.  Even in the bad light, Wufei could tell that he had lost enough sleep to make him _look_ tired. 

“When’d you get here,” Heero asked.

“Five, ten minutes ago.”

“I didn’t hear Zechs.”

“He had things to do, so he just dropped me off.”

Heero’s mouth moved briefly.  He nodded once.  Wufei took a sip of his water.  Duo looked up from where he was crouched over the bags.

“Well?”

“No changes,” Heero said.  “No sudden withdrawals or closures.  We’re clear.”  Duo smiled as Heero came over.  Heero dropped down and started rearranging the contents of his bag.  He slipped his laptop into it and covered it with folded clothes.  When Heero zipped it up, Duo’s hand drifted to the small of his back.  Heero’s head dipped forward as Duo’s fingers kneaded the muscles carefully.  His shoulders rose and fell with a long, silent sigh.  Heero reached out to touch Duo’s knee.  He squeezed it, harder than Wufei had ever seen, as if he needed support.

Duo’s hand slipped down and squeezed his hip.  Wufei finished his water quickly and took the glass to the kitchen. 

They both were standing when Wufei went back to the table.  Duo had his bag across his back.  “All set,” Wufei asked.

“Seems like.”

“Did you turn off the heat,” Heero asked.

“Yeah, an hour ago, in case you can’t tell.”

Heero rolled his eyes.  “The car should be here in about five minutes. We should head outside.”  Wufei went over to the couch and swung his bag up onto his shoulder.  Heero didn’t pick up his.  “I’m going to check the windows one more time.”

“I already checked them, and you checked them twice.”

“Outside, Duo.  I’ll be right there.”

Duo, shaking his head, muttered as he headed towards the door.  Wufei followed him, a couple steps behind and twice as slow.  By the time Duo was outside and starting down the driveway, Wufei was still at the door, holding onto the sturdy, reinforced wood.  He glanced briefly over his shoulder.

Heero moved with quick efficiency.  He finished with the large living room windows, pulling the curtains tight, before moving on to the kitchen.  He lingered there for a minute before heading to the stairs, and past them.  Wufei shifted, just enough so that he could catch Heero’s profile as he stopped at the first door after the stairs.

Trowa’s door, no doubt.

Wufei watched Heero’s hand rest against the wood.  Heero’s head dipped forward.  Although he couldn’t hear him, and the angle was bad enough and the house was dark enough that he couldn’t quite see his face, Wufei swore he saw Heero’s mouth move. 

Then Heero turned and headed back towards the stairs.  Wufei had seen the shift and was out the door before Heero even finished turning.

Wufei walked quickly across the gravel.  He had always been perceptive.  He had had his suspicions, but this.  This was a surprise.

 


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tracey meets Sarah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: none really
> 
> Before anyone asks: This is NOT a male pregnancy fanfic.

Sarah was easy to spot.  Not only was she wearing the black windbreaker and wispy red scarf she had mentioned, she was the only person under the flagpoles, so distracted that she didn’t notice the leash was circling her legs.               

Trowa frowned.  Why didn’t she leave the dog at home?               

Trowa used some of his easiest tricks to observe her; he didn’t have the means, or the energy, for much else.  Hip resting against the rail some fifty feet away, he watched her from beneath the hood of his denim jacket.  Occasionally she would turn just a little too far to the left in her almost desperate sweeps of the growing crowd.  Trowa would lean out over the rail every time, body turned towards her but his face towards the sea, and she would pass over him quickly.                

Tracey was only about five minutes late, which made Trowa even more uncomfortable with this meeting than he had been all morning.  And most of last night for that matter.  It just wasn’t normal for someone to be panicking so early, at least not when failure, discovery, or death weren’t immediate concerns.  She obviously had expectations for this meeting, expectations that Trowa most likely didn’t share.  This was going to be a disaster.  He knew it.  He should spare himself the impending embarrassment and go home.               

And then, just as they had this morning at the dresser, and in the bathroom, and finally at the door, Trowa’s legs turned in the direction opposite of the one his brain ordered. 

Trowa stuffed his hands into his pockets as he walked towards the flagpoles, shoulders rounding forward every few steps.  If he could understand why he had made it, Trowa might have felt a little better about this stupid decision.  _Or pretend to, at least._ It had been a whim, one possibly born out of temporary insanity; he might have hit his head last night.  But once he figured out why Sarah’s lingering gaze as he jogged away left him chilled—once he figured out what, or rather who, it reminded him of—Trowa should have barricaded himself in the apartment.  It wasn’t like Sarah could find him.  He should have made an excuse: call Holly and beg her for hours or switch shifts with David.  Work was a safe reason to avoid someone.  He should have called her this morning and said something came up, someone was sick, there was a sinkhole that destroyed half of the frozen food section.  He would have been disgustingly apologetic.  He should have called and cancelled.

_What kind of person gives out their cell phone number after a runaway dog anyway?_  

Trowa should have done _something_ to stop this meeting from happening, and he hadn’t.  That bothered him.  There was nothing between them.  They were two people who ran into each other, almost literally.  There was no connection.  There was no want or need that was going to be fulfilled by cultivating even an acquaintanceship.  Judging from their initial meeting, Trowa could expect more bodily harm if he furthered this encounter even a little.  

And yet Trowa was going to, because underneath the embarrassment and the discomfort, there _was_ something, or at least he hoped there was.  It was something Trowa wanted.  It was stupid and dangerous.  He had been actively avoiding it for _weeks_ , but Trowa still wanted it.  It was a taste of what he missed.  A taste couldn’t be bad, as long as it didn’t become an addiction.  _Because I’ve had such a great track record._

One meeting.  He was allowing himself one meeting and that was going to be it.  If it didn’t satisfy him, Trowa would have all the more reason to kick himself later. 

When he was within thirty feet, Trowa slipped his hands out of his pockets and pushed back his hood.  He rolled his shoulders so that he moved with more of Tracey’s usual hesitancy instead of overt reluctance.  Within twenty feet, Trowa shifted towards the left.  Sarah caught the movement.  She turned quickly.  Her face broke into a wide, relieved smile.  Trowa was more convinced than ever that she had no idea that there was a leash looped three times around her shins. 

Thankfully he was only a few feet away when she tried to take a step.  Sarah gasped, her arms spinning wildly.  Trowa caught her around the waist.  Her chin landed hard on his collarbone; the top of her head smacked him in the mouth.  Her second gasp sounded neither hurt nor embarrassed.  Trowa should have let her drop. 

“Jazz!  Dumb dog, what were you doing?  I’m really sorry, Tracey—” 

“You should pay more attention to her,” he said, pushing her back by the shoulders.  

“I know, especially after last night,” she said.  She picked the leash from around her legs, careful not to let the end out of her hand in case Jazz decided to run.  Jazz, however, seemed content with lying by her feet and staring up at Trowa with large brown eyes.  “How’s your head?” 

Trowa crouched down near Jazz.  After sniffing the hand he held near her nose, she licked his fingers in short pulls.  Apparently, she either forgot or forgave him for nearly choking her.  Trowa wiped the slimy saliva on her head before scratching her behind the ears.  

“It’s fine,” he said, trying to fight a twitch of his lips as Jazz turned her head into his fingers.  “How’s yours?” 

“Mine?” 

“You hit it just now.” 

“Did I,” she asked, running a hand along the back of her head.  “I didn’t notice.” 

Trowa wasn’t sure how that was possible, considering how much _his_ mouth hurt.  His front teeth ached, and he thought he tasted blood when he swept his tongue over the back of his lip.  

“Oh.  Well that’s good.”

Sarah smiled, wrapping the leash around her hand again.  “Ready for some pizza?”

Trowa realized, as he slid his scratching fingers beneath Jazz’s chin, that Sarah _was_ blonde.  The smooth strands that curled against her shoulders, though, were neither platinum nor sunshine.  They were darker, almost brown in the right light.  Here, under the bright but heavy clouds, they were the same muted gold of sun-sickened grass.  Trowa followed a strand of it as it slid across her eyes with the wind.  Those were blue, like he had (stupidly) hoped.  But like the hair, it was a shade he didn’t recognize.  They were a single, solid shade but lighter than any he had seen before.  Even when she smiled, they seemed distant and a little cold.

They were pretty, though, and they could have been worse; they could be black.

“You said this pizza’s pretty good,” he said.  Trowa patted Jazz’s head once before standing.

Sarah chuckled.  “You definitely haven’t been here long.  Manco’s better than good.  People drive for hours for a slice, in summer anyway.”

Trowa held back a frown.  Season really couldn’t have that much of an effect on a pizza’s popularity.  “They don’t have good pizza hours away?”

“They don’t have shore pizza, and everyone knows shore pizza is the best.  You’ll see.”

“Guess I will,” he said, falling into step beside her as she started walking down the boardwalk.  Jazz slipped between them and butted her head against his knee. “Can’t be very long, though.  I have to work.”

“I thought you said you were free,” she said, frowning.

“Someone called out and we’ve got inventory coming up.”  It was the best he could think of on such short notice. 

“Oh.  Okay.  Just a quick slice of pizza, then.”

Apparently, there _were_ people who pouted better than Duo.  Trowa sighed and ran a hand through his hair.  “As long as I can get home by three.  Three-thirty at the latest.”

“I can do that.  The boardwalk’s not that long.”

“I thought we were doing pizza.” 

“We are doing pizza but that’s only part of the experience.  You’ve got to at least tour the rest of the boardwalk.  Otherwise, you’ll never know what’s worth seeing." 

Trowa reached down and scratched at Jazz’s insistent head.  He had already “toured” the boardwalk on his own.  In the first days, when he couldn’t sleep, Trowa had walked the silent miles, listening to the soft slap of his shoes and the creak of his weight on the worn wood.  When he drifted through the business district, he had walked close enough to the stores and restaurants to peer through their black windows.               

He had been unimpressed.               

When he roamed it in the daylight, after he realized that days off were brutal on his anxiety and he needed at least minor stimulation to distract his overactive mind, he had been only marginally less unimpressed.  In the off-season, a fourth of the stores were closed.  Swim wear and souvenir shops, mostly, a couple of summer clothing stores, a small amusement area.  It was close enough to official spring and the last stretch before the summer rush that workers appeared in some of them.  Behind glass doors, Trowa watched them remodel, repair, open crates, or start the slow process of inventory.               

Another fourth were empty.  Apart from some shelves, maybe a hook or two, and an inch of dust, there was nothing behind the smudged display windows.  The white and black “for sale” and “for rent” signs plastered to the door looked oddly yellow.            

The rest of the stores were varying levels of deserted, with maybe a handful of customers on a good day at any hour, instead of the “throngs” of the summer rush.  The restaurants seemed to get decent business; there was always a few people waiting or chatting quietly whenever he passed.  The rest—clothes and jewelry and knick-knacks and such—would be lucky if they had one customer as he passed.  And that customer always seemed to leave empty-handed.  Trowa was surprised there weren’t more clearance sale signs.               

Maybe the summer rush was enough to keep them in the black during the off-season, or maybe Trowa just picked bad times.  Late evenings and weekday afternoons weren’t exactly the best times for shopping or socializing.  People had school and nine-to-five jobs, and Trowa had boxes every Saturday and Sunday to unpack.               

Sarah passed the first few stores with very limited commentary.  At the fifth, she slowed a bit as she said “You’ll get food poisoning there, everyone does.”  At the eighth, she stopped and sighed wistfully, “I wish they were still here.  I liked their shoes.”  Soon they were drifting slowly from storefront to storefront, never lingering longer than a few minutes, and Trowa found himself oddly interested in a few of the places they left behind.              

“You’re lying.”              

“I’m telling you, Shriver’s was here when Queen Victoria was alive.”               

“That’s over a hundred years—"               

“One hundred and fifty actually.”              

Trowa couldn’t even think of a business that had stayed in operation for more than a century.  “It’s not possible.  Times change.  People change, what they need changes.  No one can stay open that long.  It’s impossible.”            

“You never heard of Harvard?  Yale?  Oxford?”             

“Those are universities.”               

“They’re famous and popular universities, and Shriver’s is a famous and popular store.  It’s the same thing,” she said.  Trowa shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck.  It really wasn’t it, but he doubted Tracey would argue that point.  “And don’t let the name fool you: salt-water taffy is delicious.”              

“If you like salt.”               

“There’s actually no salt.  Just sweet, chewy goodness.  I’ll buy a handful later and you can try it.”               

If salt-water taffy was similar in to regular taffy, Trowa was going to pass.  Taffy was the culprit of the perhaps single occasion where Duo threatened to kill Quatre.  Trowa didn’t know how the melted goop got in his hair in the first place, but it had taken nearly three hours to get out, and they still had to cut off a couple of inches.  Of course, handling it now was probably safer than in the middle of July heat-wave, but he would rather not risk it.              

Trowa fought the urge to shake his head hard.  He wasn’t supposed to think about that.  “You don’t have to do that.”             

“But if I buy some for you, then I get to have some.  And I haven’t had any in ages.               

“You can’t just buy it?”              

“You’ve never seen me around salt-water taffy.  It’s not pretty, and I like being able to fit in these jeans.  So I try to limit myself.”              

“Got it.  Well, thank you, then.”              

“Thank _you_.”             

They passed a few more stores, including a bookstore she used to frequent as a child for story-hours and a temporary tattoo parlor/henna artist who was very liberal with her discounts, before Sarah interrupted herself.               

“So are you from Red Bank?”               

Trowa looked away from the heavy gray clouds slowly rolling in from the ocean. “Red Bank?”             

“Guess not.  Hoboken?”            

“I’m sorry?”            

“Okay, so you’re not from north Jersey.  New Yorker then. That’s a shame.”            

“I’m from Colorado.”             

“No way,” she said, stopping so fast that Jazz yelped as the leash went tight.  Sarah ducked down to sooth her neck with pets.  “You sound just like a north Jersian.”              

Trowa wasn’t exactly sure what a “north Jersian” sounded like, but he assumed it might be a little bit like a “New Yorker,” considering the proximity.  He had no idea why it was a shame.  “It’s unintentional.”             

“You’ve been in Ocean City how long?”            

“Almost two months,” he said slowly, weaving slightly as he walked.              

“Have you been to north Jersey yet?”             

“No.”              

“Have you ever?”            

“This is my first time in New Jersey.”               

“Freaky.  I so had you pegged as north Jersey.”               

“I’m sorry to disappoint.”               

“No, no, no.  I’m just surprised.  Colorado.  I’ve never been out that far.  Is it nice there?”               

Trowa had never been to Colorado.  He wasn’t sure if he even flew over it.  Tracey, though, had lived there his entire life.  Born in Denver, raised in Boulder until he was old enough to miss it, and then rotted away in Cripple Creek: a mining town with less than two-thousand people, with enough space between the houses that no one heard, or cared, about what happened to the neighbors.               

“It’s cold,” he muttered.  “Often.”              

“There are mountains in Colorado, right?  The Rockies?  Did you live near them?  They must be beautiful.”            

Trowa had had a book—which he really shouldn’t think about—that had mountains in it.  He wasn’t sure if they were the Rockies or not; he never spent that much time looking at the captions.  If they were the Rockies, though, they were beautiful.  White in winter, with forests dripping down their slopes in drips of paint.  Green and grey in summer.  Gold in the mornings and evenings as the sun kissed the horizon, before brightening into blue or deepening into violet as day came or ended.              

He had been tempted to hide out there, where mountains pierced the sky on every side of small towns.  But Trowa had seen mountains.  He had been, briefly, encircled by their cold, constant presence.  He had never _seen_ the ocean.              

“It’s okay.  I prefer the ocean.”               

“Water and sand,” she said, frowning out the beach.  “For as far as you can see.  Oh, and crabs, and jellyfish in summer.”               

“Better than rocks.  Miles and miles of rocks, straight into the sky, and trees, and sometimes bears if you’re really unlucky.”               

“I’ve never seen mountains, so I think I might enjoy the miles and miles of rocks.  And bears are at least exciting.”               

“I’ve never seen the ocean so I like the miles and miles of water and sand.  And they’re only exciting until they’re nosing at your backdoor.”          

“They come to your door?”           

“They’re bears.  They kind of do what they want.”             

“Did bears ever come to your door?”              

“A couple of times, yeah.”               

“Wow,” she said, head falling back as if she couldn’t imagine bears on a back porch.  Trowa really couldn’t, for that matter.  He had experiences of bears (and lions, tigers, and the occasional elephant) walking past his trailer, sometimes under his guidance.  He imagined it was quite a bit worse than that.              

“So did you come to escape the bears,” she asked.              

“No.  Actually I—”             

“There it is!”              

Trowa followed the sudden jerk of her hand.  It took him a moment to pick out this “famous” pizza place from the rest of the store fronts.  It was only one in this segment with a green-and-white awning, weather beaten and tattered.  As they approached, Trowa noticed that there was a name scrawled across the front of the awning: Manco and Manco’s.  The letters were faded to near invisibility.               

 Within a couple of feet of the entrance, Trowa saw that it was clearly one of the busiest places on the boardwalk; there were at least six people at the counter and another two sitting at the nearest table.  From the smells, he could see why.  His stomach rumbled at the idea of cheese, tomatoes, and hard baked bread, and then lurched when it remembered that it wasn’t actually accepting food at the moment.               

The disaster was approaching; he could feel it.               

“I can’t take Jazz inside, so would you mind waiting out with her?  It won’t take long, since it’s not super busy.  We can eat on the bench since it’s nice out.”               

Trowa glanced at the sky growing steadily grayer as the clouds moved in.  There was a cold, wet bite to the wind coming off the water.  “Nice out” was going to last another hour, tops.  “I can wait here, no problem.”               

“Any requests?  It’s on me.  They have an amazing sausage and pepper pizza.”               

“Plain’s fine,” he said.               

“Are you sure?  They’ve got mushroom and ham and pepperoni, of course and—” 

“Plain’s fine,” he said.  “I like uncomplicated pizza.”               

“Uncomplicated it is,” she said.  Sarah pushed the leash into his hands before hurrying off.  Trowa glanced down at Jazz.  She looked up at him with large eyes before butting her head against his knee.                

Trowa didn’t have much experience with dogs, apart from a couple of guard dogs that had chased him off bases when he was young and stupid.  He had lots of experience with lions, though.  The control principles were probably similar, and Trowa ran a much lower risk of losing a very large chunk of his body if he pissed off the dog.  Trowa wound the leash around his right hand once and grabbed the remaining lead with his left.  He tugged gently.  Jazz resisted for a second, pulling back against him, before turning with the leash.              

Trowa led her over to the empty wooden bench sitting under the railing.  He was tempted for a moment to tie the leash around one of the metal poles that connected the bench’s seat to its back.  Instead, Trowa leaned against the rail.  He gave the leash slack and then spent the next few minutes carefully unwinding the nylon from around his knees as Jazz walked around him.  Eventually, Jazz settled down next to him and laid her head on top of his foot.  Trowa dropped down slowly.                

There was something pleasant about sitting back on his heels, scratching a dog behind the ears, and watching storm clouds roll in off the coast.  The soft push and pull of the water, the quiet crash as the waves broke against the shore, drowned out the little human activity he could hear behind him until there was only the cool rush of the water, the hard wood under his feet, and the warm fur under his hands.  Trowa shifted carefully, stretching out his legs until he could let them dangle over the edge of the walk.  Jazz’s head ended up in his lap, turning against his jeans as she tried to guide his fingers to the places she wanted petted.               

_Maybe I should think about getting a pet._ He was finding them unexpectedly pleasant, a steady and comfortable weight and warmth against him.  And a pet would be an excellent distraction, which he so sorely needed.  Maybe Trowa _should_ think about getting something: a dog, or a cat maybe.  He might enjoy having a cat; cats were quiet, efficient creatures.  They were affectionate and independent in turns, which was fine.  A cat, when it was so inclined, would fit nicely in his lap or in the crook between his shoulder and neck.  A cat, however, probably wouldn’t enjoy sitting on the beach or boardwalk in the wind, watching the ocean.  It certainly wouldn’t enjoy trying to get it there.  A dog would, though, and right now, sitting on the boardwalk with a head in his lap was exactly what Trowa wanted to do.               

Of course, when he was ready to leave, having a pet would be something of a problem.  Depending on the size, transporting it could be difficult and costly.  Depending on how deeply he dove into the underground, he might not even have time to take care of it.  And if he did take it with him, Trowa couldn’t depend on anyone to pet sit when he disappeared for days, or weeks, on end.  It would be unfair.  It would carry a much higher risk of discovery.  Trowa would rather not have to kill more people than he absolutely had to.               

Still, having a dog’s head on his lap, drool and all, was nice enough that Trowa considered it.  He heard in passing that there was a shelter nearby, and Mrs. Cass’ son was still begging for a dog.  He could leave it, if he needed to.               

“Pizza’s here,” Sarah called.               

Trowa looked back at her and nodded.  Standing slowly, he traded the leash for a thick paper plate and cup.  Sarah tied the end of the leash around the bench’s feet.  She stroked Jazz’s head once before hurrying back to the restaurant.                

Trowa looked down at the plate in his hand.  _No wonder she couldn’t bring both at once._ The two slices of plain cheese pizza took up the entire plate, their edges draping dangerously over the sides.  Trowa sat down on the bench, setting his cup down by his feet but away from Jazz’s slowly wagging tail, and balancing the plate on his knees.  He could see the grease oozing out of the cheese, and while Trowa never normally had a problem with it—pizza wasn’t supposed to be healthy, after all—the sight of it made his stomach flip hard.               

Sarah dropped down beside him, cradling two of the most topping-packed pizza slices he had ever seen between her hands.  “Oh that smells good.”               

Trowa swallowed the lump that had crept into his throat.  “Really good.”  Sarah took a large bite and sighed happily.  Trowa balanced a slice on his fingers and took a much smaller one.  It was almost too hot to eat.  Trowa chewed slowly.  Somehow, through the thick numbness that overpowered his mouth as the nausea rose, he knew that he was eating an exemplary piece of pizza.  He was going to feel terrible for throwing it back up.                

Maybe if he took very small bites between very long intervals, he would keep it down.              

“So,” Sarah said after eating half of her first slice and taking a long drink.  “If you didn’t come here to escape the bears, why Ocean City?”               

Trowa took two careful bites before answering.  “It seemed like a quiet place,” he said.  Trowa actually hadn’t put much thought into it; there hadn’t been enough time.  He had needed a small town depressed enough by the war to be off the radar while not being completely broken.  Ocean City fit, and had the added bonus of a minor reputation concerning its seaside.  “I need quiet to work.”              

“You need quiet for inventory?”               

“I need quiet to write.  Stock is just a paycheck to tide me over until I get something out there.”             

“You’re a writer?”              

“Yeah,” he said, with a sinking suspicion about where this was going.  Sarah didn’t disappoint him.  Her mouth broke into a wide smile and she nearly knocked her pizza off her lap.             

“That’s so cool.  Are you working on anything now?”             

“I’m working on a couple of things.”              

“A couple?  Oh awesome.  Can you tell me about any of them?”               

Trowa devoured half of his pizza despite his heaving stomach.  He needed the excuse; he needed _time_.  Apart from a couple of names and the very beginnings of something that might be considered a plot, Trowa had nothing that would be convincing enough for Tracey to ramble on about.  He had, after all, been trying to avoid those tiring conversations.  Swallowing hard, he somehow managed to drag up Tracey’s enthusiasm.               

“I’ve got this one right now that I think is going to be it.  It’s got all of my attention all of the time.  There’s this girl, Eudora, and she—”               

Surprisingly, Sarah threw her hands over her ears, nearly upsetting the pizza again.  “No, no, no, stop, stop.  I changed my mind.”               

Trowa was too confused to let Tracey be hurt.  “I thought—”               

“I don’t want to spoil it,” she said, bringing her hands down. “If this is ‘the one,’ then I don’t want to have it already ruined for me when I buy it.”               

“But it could be totally different by then.”               

“Or it couldn’t, and if there’s anything I hate, it’s having a book ruined for me.”              

“Oh,” he said and, despite not writing a word, found himself oddly touched by the reasoning and the sincere passion behind it.  “So you like to read?”               

“More like love.  You’re catching me in one of those rare moments when I don’t have a book glued to my nose.”               

“That sounds time-consuming.”               

“So does writing.”               

“Point taken,” he said.  Trowa took another bite.  He needed a long drink to force it down, and it still bounced back up once.  Trowa pitched forward slightly.  Sarah, who had started her second slice, didn’t notice.                

“So what do you do, when you’re not reading?” he managed after a moment.              

“College,” she said, taking a sip of her drink.  “And babysitting, oh, and sometimes work-study but only when the professor is actually, you know, there.”  Sarah sighed and played with her straw.  “Technically, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing today, but he had _another_ conference this weekend.  I know, I should be happy to be working under such a highly-demanded, well-connected professor,” Trowa, bent over his rolling stomach, didn’t particularly _care_ at the moment.  “But it would be nice if he stuck around more than one weekend a semester.  I would like to actually earn my seven-fifty-an-hour and, you know, do simple stuff like stop begging Mom for gas money.”               

She sighed and shrugged, turning at just the right moment to see Trowa shove the plate off his lap.                

He had no idea where the nearest bathroom was and doubted he would even make it in time.  There was a trashcan about twenty feet away, but he was shaking too hard to run to it.  And he would have to try to get the lid off.  So Trowa lurched off of the bench, tripping over the leash Jazz had pulled tight in her search for bits of cheese and crust.  He caught himself on the railing and straightened just in time to vomit over the side into the sand. 

At least it didn’t get on his shoes.               

“Tracey!”  Through the hard pounding of his pulse in his ear, Trowa heard a sharp yelp.  Then there were hands: settling on his shoulder, drifting up towards his neck, skating down towards his waist.  Trowa forced one hand to let go of its vice-grip on the railing and swung.              

“Don’t!”               

Thankfully, Sarah had decent reaction time, and Trowa had terrible aim at the moment.  She jumped back out of the arch of the backhand.  He caught a glimpse of her wide-eyed, pale face before the too-fast spin shoved his stomach back into his throat.  Trowa doubled-over the railing and heaved.                

When his meager lunch, and meager breakfast, and far too much stomach acid, was finally up, Trowa slipped to his knees.  He rested his forehead against the cool metal.  Tears pricked at his eyes.  Trowa turned his face into his arm.                

Something cold suddenly dripped down the back of his neck.  Trowa jumped and nearly banged his head.               

“Sorry, sorry.  It’s just water.  I’ll just leave it here, by your knee.  Left knee, your left knee.”               

Trowa scrubbed his eyes once against the crook of his elbow before glancing down at the water.  It was in a familiar green-and-white paper cup.  From behind he heard, “He all right?”  Trowa’s face flushed.  He ducked his head as he brought the cup shakily to his lips.               

Through the dark hair falling over his face, he saw Sarah look over her shoulder.  “He’s fine,” she called.  She waited a minute, probably until whoever worked in Manco and Manco’s went back inside, before looking back at him.               

Trowa rinsed his mouth and spat the spoiled water into the sand.  “Sorry,” he muttered.  He pushed his hair back from his face.  Sarah frowned.               

“Why’d you come if you’re sick?”               

Trowa frowned. “I’m not sick.”               

“Throwing up is sick.  Throwing up after six bites is really sick.”               

“Ten bites.”               

“It’s still half a slice,” she said.  Sarah chewed on her lip before leaning forward.  Trowa couldn’t stop himself from leaning back until he hit the railing again.  “Did you pick up the bug flying around?”               

“Bug?”               

“This stomach thing hitting the schools.  Half my brother’s class is out with it.”               

That certainly sounded better than saying he was making himself sick.  “Maybe.  I don’t know,” he said taking a sip of water.  Sarah rocked back on her heels.              

“You need anything?  Soda usually settles my stomach.  All the bubbles and stuff.”               

Trowa glanced down at the water in his hands.  The cold splash wasn’t making his stomach roll any less.  Carbonation might, though.  “That’d be great.”               

Sarah took a little bit longer to get the soda.  Trowa, sitting back against the railing, watched her as she lingered at the counter.  She smiled, though, when she came back: a small, sheepish twitch at the corners of her mouth that didn’t quite reach her eyes.  It was uncomfortably familiar.               

“I’m sorry,” he said when she crouched and handed him the soda.  “For… I don’t, I don’t like people touching me.  When I’m sick.”              

Sarah watched him closely before smiling a bit more.  The warmth of it touched her eyes.  “I guess it is pretty gross and embarrassing,” she said.  She shifted a little closer.  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”              

“I’d appreciate that,” he said.  Trowa sipped the soda carefully; the carbonation settled his stomach slowly.            

“I’m sorry you couldn’t really enjoy your pizza,” she said.  Trowa shrugged.              

“At least someone is.”  Sarah followed the slow, careful nod he made towards the bench.  In his haste, Trowa had knocked his plate clean off the bench, and in their distraction Jazz had managed to nose the plate away from the partly-eaten pieces.  She was dutifully licking cheese and sauce from the wood, crust crumbles dotting her muzzle.              

“I don’t suppose you’d want something for the road.”            

“I’ll pass.”               

Sarah frowned at Jazz as she crawled after more sauce-and-cheese stains.  “I’m leaving you outside tonight if you get sick.”             

Jazz licked determinedly at the stain.             

“Stupid dog.  She won’t get sick, either.  My brother feeds her so much junk, I’m amazed she isn’t two-hundred pounds,” she said.  Sarah leaned her chin into her hand.  “You should probably go home and get some rest.”            

“Probably.”          

“And you probably shouldn’t go to work.  I’m pretty sure they’d be upset if you threw up all over their inventory.”             

“Probably.  We’d throw it all away because of ‘contamination.’  I’d probably get fired.”           

“And that would be bad.”            

Sarah chewed on her lip as he eased himself to his feet.  When he swayed and nearly dropped the half-finished soda, she looked like she wanted to lunge forward and catch him.  She rocked back to sit on the wood instead, folding her arms over her knees.  Trowa ran his hand through his hair.            

“I’ll see you around maybe,” he said slowly.  Sarah looked up at him.  The smile made her glow.            

“That’d be cool.  Maybe if you’re feeling up to, we can explore more on Saturday or Sunday.  Get some salt-water taffy in you.”            

“If I can hold it down.”            

“Here’s hoping.  If you can’t, though, it keeps well.  Lasts for days, years if you freeze it.”          

“I’ve got work on Saturday.”            

“How about Sunday?” 

“Sunday could work.”               

“So maybe Sunday then,” she asked.               

Trowa nodded slowly after a moment.  “Maybe Sunday.”               

Trowa headed back to the ramp near the flagpoles slowly, partly because he wanted to be gentle with his stomach and partly because he couldn’t quite stop himself from glancing back over his shoulder.  Sarah stayed at the bench for a while longer, moving only to sit next to Jazz.  She ripped off small pieces of the rest of her pizza and let Jazz nibble from her palm. She looked up only once, catching him.  Sarah waved as she rubbed Jazz’s head.  Trowa slipped the hand without the cup from his pocket and waved once.               

The next time he looked back, Sarah had already unwound Jazz from the bench.  She was at least twenty feet from the bench, walking in the other direction.  Trowa was suitably uncomfortable with the sudden prick of disappointment.               

Trowa walked, drinking the rest of the soda in slow, quiet sips.  When he finished, he chewed on the straw, grinding the plastic between his teeth.  His stomach still rolled a bit with every step, but it was less from the food and the stress and the anxiety.

He was looking forward to this “maybe Sunday,” and he shouldn’t.  The meeting hadn’t been a total disaster, but throwing up in front of a total stranger should have been embarrassing enough to make Trowa shun any further contact.  He was probably going to _blush_ when he saw her.  If he saw her, and he wasn’t.  Besides, Sarah was exhausting.  She seemed to have a problem with extended silences, only pausing when she needed to breathe.  And she was only going to get worse; it wouldn’t be long until she wouldn’t be able to contain herself and begged him for extensive details about what he was “working” on.  Trowa wouldn’t make it through that conversation. 

There wasn’t going to be a “maybe Sunday.”  Period.  So Trowa needed to stop lengthening his stride into a more pleased stroll at the thought of taffy, and he needed to stop his mouth from twitching up when he wondered if Sarah would bring Jazz.     

Thankfully, the clouds opened up as he reached his ramp.  Then all Trowa could think about was getting back to the apartment before he was soaked through. 

Trowa didn’t run.  He didn’t exactly trust his stomach to stay where it was.  He did, however, walk as fast as he could, shoulders hunched against the steadily increasing rain.  A third of the way there, Trowa pulled his hood back over his head and zipped his jacket up to his chin.  The rain drummed hard against the denim.  It was a heavy downpour in minutes.

As he rounded the last corner, Trowa glanced back over his shoulder.  He couldn’t even really see the boardwalk from here, and he had no idea how far away she lived.  He hoped it wasn’t too far.  _She couldn’t have had an umbrella.  She didn’t even have a purse._   There were plenty of stores on the boardwalk, and several of them had to have umbrellas, or awnings where she could wait the rain out.  _She’s fine, now stop it.  There’s no Sunday.  Stop thinking about it._  

Trowa yanked his head back towards the entrance of his apartment building.  He stopped. 

Thirty feet ahead, a braid slipped around the edge of the entrance way.  It slapped wetly against the worn brick that made up the entrance’s arch.  Just past the long, soggy sweeping of that hair, Trowa caught a glimpse of brown khakis soaked to the knee and drenched yellow sneakers.  Trowa waited twenty agonizing seconds.  There were no shouts of the name he dared not say aloud.  There were no bodies streaking from the cover of the entrance towards him.  Trowa took a stumbling step backwards.  His second step was steadier. 

Yanking his hood down over his face, Trowa turned.  He shoved his wet hands into his wet pockets as he headed back towards the boardwalk, making turns at random.  He would find the animal shelter now.  He would stumble upon it by accident.  It would only take a few hours; in a few hours, they would be discouraged. 

And if they weren’t, there were a couple of roofs close enough that he might make a jump. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trowa is not pregnant, I promise. To be honest, he's sterile.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they finally get see Trowa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: swearing, references to past abuse

Duo was surprised Trowa hadn’t gone bat-shit insane yet. 

There was nothing _wrong_ with Ocean City, New Jersey, of course.  It was safe and mostly intact, and the air was heavy with the smell of the sea.  Duo had rolled down his window before they reached the last bridge into the city, wanting to get that first whiff of the ocean.  When the sea-cleaned air smacked the rental car, cascading over the less-than-pristine interior and the cracked, fake leather seats, Duo had stuck his head out the window and breathed. 

If he looked like a dog on a road trip, half-leaning out of the car with his hair flapping into his widely-grinning mouth, no one said anything.  They couldn’t.  Quatre had rolled his down too; Wufei had leaned his head back, eyes half-closed under the smell; Heero had actually smiled, until Duo just missed clipping a road sign with his forehead.  Heero had threatened to make Duo walk the last couple of miles if he didn’t pull his head in.

There was neither shoulder nor sidewalk on the bridge, and the sky had looked ready to open up any minute, so Duo had slid back into his seat. 

Now, though, they were three days into their stay—and down four sets of clothes because shit, it could rain in New Jersey—and Duo was realizing that under the rich smell of the sea, there was sweet, pungent decay.  More than half of the stores were closed; the rest were struggling.  Two schools, and more houses than they cared to think about, were empty.  Residents avoided their eyes.  Those who didn’t smiled with barely concealed confusion.  Sometimes outright hostility.

Ocean City was dying.  Slowly and brutally.  From the inside out.  Duo wasn’t sure how Trowa could stand it.

Duo knew that Trowa valued privacy, and he had to be getting it; Duo had been sitting on this curb for nearly twenty minutes and seen a total of two cars.  He knew that he needed quiet.  He knew that Trowa flinched from hard rushes of noise and bodies (something he learned from the one time he had gotten Trowa to go out for a “boys’ night”).  More than anything, though, Duo knew that Trowa hated being idle. 

And if Trowa wasn’t idle, Duo would shave his head.

Trowa had been off the grid for about two months, and he hadn’t done a single thing he, or Heero, had expected him to.  _Which is why he was so damn hard to find._ Trowa hadn’t cashed in any favors or called any old contacts—with the exception of Richards, who was hardly “old,” let alone a contact, and who had only provided him with his papers under threat (of losing his wife and son and that made Duo’s skin crawl).  Trowa hadn’t slipped into cyberspace.  He hadn’t landed with barely a ripple in the pool of mercenaries and agents-for-hire that lurked just beneath the mess of social media, ridiculous images, and relevant-and-irrelevant information that was the internet.  Trowa hadn’t disappeared in New York or London or Moscow, where a man with his unique skill set could easily make a name or a fortune.  Usually both. 

Instead Trowa had paid-cash and hitch-hiked to a dead-end town with a dead-end name, took up residence in a dead-end apartment, and found himself a less-than-a-dead-end job. 

If he wasn’t so angry about it, Duo would have been really impressed with Trowa’s dedication to escape them.

Duo heard a scuff and then the skitter of a rock to his left. He glanced over just in time to see the can Wufei tossed at him.  Catching it one-handed, Duo frowned at the neon green-and-yellow can.

“You would grab the only flavor that I hate,” Duo said as he looked over the energy drink.

Wufei snorted.  “Be glad I actually bought you that crap.  I almost bought you water.”

“You don’t want to poison me, do you ‘Fei?”

“Water isn’t poison.  That stuff on the other hand.”

“I like this stuff, thank you very much,” he said, popping open the can.  The face Wufei made as he drank it was priceless.  Or it would be if Duo wasn’t forcing himself not to gag. 

“Do you even know what’s in it,” Wufei asked.

“Nope.  Don’t particularly care either.”

“No, you wouldn’t, would you?”

“I’m pretty damn healthy, ‘Fet.  So let me have my junk food in peace.”

Outside of their weekly runs, Wufei was very much aware of the level of activity Duo maintained, the diet he kept, and how much noise he could give when his health was threatened.  Wufei had watched him argue with the cafeteria staff about how they would be better off eating candy bars than the building’s dark-meat turkey-and-mayonnaise-on-potato-bread sandwiches.  So Wufei just frowned at him and twisted of the cap of his water a little harder than usual.

“Sidewalk’s pretty dry, you know,” Duo said as Wufei squatted.  It hadn’t rained since last night.  Wufei eyed the cold, dark concrete once before settling himself more comfortably on his heels.  Duo took a short swig of the bitter energy drink.  On his heels probably would have been a good idea, but his butt was already mostly numb against the cold.  Besides, Duo’s jeans were black.  No one would notice a wet stain.

Considering how long he had been waiting, his legs would have been worse than numb by now, anyway.

“Still up there,” Wufei asked, looking four buildings down at the battered, brick apartment building

“Still up there,” he said with a nod.  “No one’s come in or out either.”

Duo and Wufei would be up there themselves, except that Duo had gone up on the first day, with the landlord as a prospective tenant, and Heero wanted a second lookout.  They had gone up to his apartment on their very first day and stood dripping wet outside of Trowa’s apartment for nearly thirty minutes.  They finally decided he wasn’t home, which was totally possible.  Trowa had a job (although Duo found it hard to imagine Trowa—graceful and brilliant and lethal Trowa—working at a supermarket).  When Wufei and Quatre had waited over an hour that same night, however, Heero had started to worry Trowa had gotten word—or worse, caught a glimpse—of them.  They needed proof that Trowa hadn’t already left, which meant that someone needed to distract the landlord.

In Heero’s head, breaking into the landlord’s office was better than breaking into Trowa’s apartment.  Duo was probably the only one who understood how Heero had reached that conclusion.  It had nothing to do with the likelihood of bullets.

Duo tried not to be angry.  He really did, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself.  If Heero had just listened to him.  _But when does Heero actually listen to me?_ If he had, though, this all would be so much easier.  They would be tracking down a friend, possible a boyfriend, instead of a wanted criminal who may or may not be their friend anymore.  If Heero had just told Trowa, it might not have gotten this far.  Trowa might have come home after shooting Kader’s advisor in the kneecaps.  He might have gone to Heero.

He might have _told_ Heero, and then Heero might have hunted Kader down like the bastard that he was.  It would have saved everyone some trouble.

_Or Trowa might have booked._ He might have moved out.  Then they wouldn’t have worked together, because Une wasn’t dumb enough to mix bad blood with a sensitive mission.  Maybe Trowa wouldn’t have been in the alley; but maybe he would have, and _they_ wouldn’t have been there. 

They wouldn’t have been there.  Someone else would have found him, spread-eagle, blood half-frozen beneath his head and on his face.  Someone _else_ would have found him with his shirt torn open and that fucking skirt hiked up.  Maybe they would have tripped over themselves.  Maybe they would have slit open a pant leg sliding over the ice because stopping and kneeling would take too long.  Maybe they would have ripped a seam on their coat trying to get it off.  Maybe they would have almost broken Trowa’s neck shaking him. 

Or maybe they would have take one look at the small mounds of flesh, pale and hard from the cold, already bruising, and left him there.

Maybe Trowa wouldn’t have made it back at all.

The can’s rim twisted between Duo’s teeth.  The thought alone made him sick and angry.  _Don’t forget guilty._

That possibility, though, frightened Heero.  Face drawn, hands shaking, pulse spiking _frightened_.  Duo had seen most of his reactions, but there was nothing quite as painful as seeing Heero bone-deep scared.  Heero could dent metal when he was angry and look straight through you when he was concerned.  He doubled over, completely silent, when he was laughing hysterically, and the one time he had seen Heero cry, he had been equally silent. 

And even that wasn’t nearly as bad as when Heero had gone completely still at the mouth of the alley that night.

Except, perhaps, after Duo had found Trowa’s badge.  After they had confirmed that Trowa was actually gone.  After that, Duo had gone home to collect Heero for Une, because she wanted Trowa found immediately (which hadn’t worked out well at all). 

Heero and Quatre had been at the table, with Trowa’s flute case between them.  They hadn’t even heard him come in.  Quatre had had his head on his arms, his fingers pulling at his sleeves hard enough to tear.  Heero, however, had been staring.  His hands folded in front him as he stared at the flute case. His lips were pressed against his knuckles.  His brow was furrowed.  It had taken Duo several long seconds to understand why the soft lines across Heero’s forehead made his chest hurt.

Heero had long since resigned himself to never telling Trowa how he felt.  To him, losing Trowa as a friend was so much worse than never having him as a lover.  And Heero _could_ lose him.  A confession could drive Trowa away.  They were all sure of that.  The alley, that had strengthened Heero’s resolve.  Trowa drifting away, Trowa _wasting_ away, had strengthened it further.  Even the “boyfriend” hadn’t shaken him.  There were moments, of course, where Duo thought Heero’s steel grip on his desires had finally broken, but his jaw always unclenched and his fists always relaxed.  Nothing was worse than losing Trowa, so Heero always backed away.

So that poignant look of regret—brows knitted; eyes narrowed, the corners turned down in momentary misery; mouth a soft line carefully hidden behind his clenching hands—on Heero’s face had almost made Duo drop everything and sweep him into a hug because god damn it, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

But he hadn’t, because when that moment passed, Heero would never have forgiven him for wasting their very precious time.

Duo hugged him after they got rejected from the first search team.  They were at the office at the time, so they both claimed Duo was holding Heero back with an oddly-effective two-armed neck hold.  Une agreed to buy it.

He was just starting to wonder if he could get away with a hug tonight, because Heero wasn’t the only one who needed some emotional support right now, when Wufei shifted.  “Door’s opening,” he said.  Duo leaned forward.

They had the perfect vantage point for the old apartment building’s chipped entranceway, crouching as they were about four buildings down.  So when the glass door open, and Heero and Quatre stepped out after a gangly kid with a soccer ball, they had an excellent view of their pinched faces.

Wufei sighed.  “Kind of makes you miss the old days, doesn’t it,” he asked. 

In the old days, Heero would have broken whatever he had to.  In the old days, he would have repelled from the roof and kicked in a window, or shimmied through the ventilation shaft to get into Trowa’s apartment.  He would have dragged Trowa back kicking and screaming, or knocked him out if the noise really bothered him.

But in the old days, Trowa was sometimes little more than a method for completion in a dark, quiet cockpit.  Heero didn’t like to be reminded of that.

“Maybe a little,” he lied.

Wufei stuffed his empty plastic bottle and Duo’s empty can—the taste was going to linger for _hours_ —into the plastic convenience store bag.  He stood and brushed himself off.  Duo stayed on the curb, leaning against one knee with his cheek on his fist.  They weren’t going anywhere soon.  Quatre and Heero weren’t even halfway to them and he could already tell they had been arguing. 

“I’m not breaking into his office again,” Quatre muttered when they were in earshot.

“You didn’t break into it the first time.”

“Fine,” Quatre said, scowling. “ _You’re_ not breaking into it.”

Heero was “the perfect soldier” for several reasons, none of which had to do with skill.  He knew how to obey an order, he knew how to prioritize them, and he knew (now) when to abandon the chain of command because of morality or gut feeling.  What Heero didn’t know was how to handle being bossed around, and there was quite a difference between the two.  The glare he leveled on Quatre was sharp enough to make him stumble.

“I don’t remember asking for your permission, Quatre,” he said with a low growl.  Quatre squared his shoulders, lapping up the tension for stability.

“I don’t remember there being much of difference between an office and an apartment.”

“I need to know—”

“He’s there.”

“We don’t know that.”

“He’s avoiding us.”

“Expertly,” Heero muttered.  “Which does not mean he didn’t up and leave.”

“He’s probably at work,” Duo said, standing and brushing off the backs of his legs.  Heero’s head snapped towards him, betrayal flickering briefly over his expression before smoothing back into irritation.  “You said he’s doing mostly day work.  It’s not even three.  He’s probably piling apples or something.”

Heero’s mouth flattened into a hard line.  He finally caved yesterday and hacked through the ridiculously easy security software protecting the grocery store’s computer system.  They had Trowa’s work schedule in less than five minutes.  Part of Duo was thrilled at having Trowa’s working life in their hands.  It gave them a framework to work in to pin Trowa down.

The other part of him wished Heero hadn’t listened to him at all.

“We’re not going,” Duo said when he caught the almost eager gleam in Quatre’s eyes.  Quatre had the decency to flush.

“I know, I know, but it would—”

Duo shook his head once.  “No, Cat, it really wouldn’t.”

The frown crossing Quatre’s face was surprisingly Heero-like.  Duo wasn’t exactly sure if Quatre was feeding off of Heero’s frustration or if he crossed the line.

“I would not cause a scene,” he said, voice oddly quiet.  _Crossed the line.  Big time._

To be fair, those had been Wufei’s words, not Duo’s.  To be even fairer, Duo had smacked Wufei for them.  No, Quatre wasn’t exactly stable at the moment, and yes, the constant worrying and anxiety were wearing on his emotional and empathetic controls.  But Quatre wasn’t unstable _._ He wasn’t Zero-addled.  _And when the shit hits the fan?_   After all, this wasn’t a vacation they were cutting short.  The warrant in Heero’s pocket was real.

 

The gun in Heero’s suitcase, the one with the chamber empty, was real.  Protocol dictated that all operatives in pursuit of lethal targets had to be armed at all times.  Even if that target was a friend.  Heero hadn’t taken his gun out once since leaving the house.  He could get a reprimand and a heavy dock to his pay, at a minimum, if the upper echelon of the Preventers ever found out.  They all could. 

But none of them wanted guns around when they finally cornered Trowa.  None of them wanted that risk, from any of them.

“You won’t, but he might,” Duo half-lied.

“He won’t.”

“We have no idea what he’ll do,” Wufei said, arms folded across his chest.  He stared unflinchingly into Quatre’s glare.

“He’s our friend.”

“He shot a man in the kneecaps and disappeared for two months under a false name.”

Heero nodded once.  “All bets are off right now.”

“They are not.”

“Quatre,” Duo sighed.  “Trowa left for, for probably a lot of reasons.  Half of which we don’t really know.  We don’t know how he’s doing, except for maybe being really bored, and we don’t know how he feels, except he wants to avoid us.  Public spaces aren’t a good idea.  Besides,” he said, a small smile tugging at his lips.  “An apple to the head can really hurt.”

Quatre didn’t smile like he hoped.  His lip shook once before he heaved in a breath and turned.  Wufei gave Duo an odd look as Quatre passed him: part exasperated, part concerned, mostly irritated.  He followed after him. 

“Too soon,” Duo asked quietly.

“It looks that way,” Heero answered.  Duo sighed and ran a hand through his hair

“My timing sucks.”

Heero glanced at him, expression blank.  He stepped forward once, and suddenly Duo felt a warm, light weight on the small of his back.  Heero’s touch lingered even after Duo looked at him, brows drawn together.

“It can,” he said.  Duo frowned.  When he turned to walk away, Heero followed, his fingers moving gently along the base of Duo’s spine.  Duo couldn’t help himself from smiling.

Heero was shy when it came to touch.  Outside of the bedroom, or very limited company, if it lasted for more than a few seconds, it was too long for him.  Duo wasn’t sure where the aversion came from.  It was one of the few things Heero absolutely refused to talk about, and contrary to popular opinion, Duo did know when not to push. Waiting for the right opportunity for contact that could last more than five seconds was hard, but the light touch—a brush of skin against the back of his neck, fingers on his spine, hands weaving into his hair, lips against his ear—that always followed was well worth it.

Heero’s fingers lingered until they were just a few steps behind Quatre and Wufei.  Duo felt colder when they pulled away.  He glanced at Heero.  His hands were free from his pockets, swinging loosely at his sides.  Duo moved half a step closer.  He pressed the back of his left hand to Heero’s right.  For a moment, he could have sworn the corner of Heero’s mouth twitched up.

Then, there was a low whistle on Duo’s right and Heero was suddenly crushing his fingers.  Duo cursed and twisted in his grip.  Heero yanked hard.  Liking his shoulder where it was, Duo stumbled into the pull.  The soccer ball narrowly missed his head.  He watched it slap loudly against the empty brick building they had been walking past.

Duo blinked and straightened, rubbing absently at his now slightly-numb fingers.  The ball, standard issued black-and-white, well-used with scuff marks and parts of its shell hanging off, bounced and rolled towards the street.  Duo stopped it with his foot.  By then, Quatre and Wufei had hurried back, and Heero had shifted his irritated gaze from the ball to across the street.  Duo glanced over his shoulder. 

The kid hurrying across the street was young, junior high school probably, but quickly reaching that age where his arms and legs outgrew the rest of him.  Duo caught a glimpse of inches of pale ankle with every gangly step.  The kid stopped short of the curb and stared up at them, completely unperturbed about standing almost in the middle of the street _._

He looked at each of them in turn through a mess of dark curls.  His eyes were wide but steady, with the odd mix of curiosity and naïve bravery that only children seemed to manage.  He stopped finally on Duo.  Momentarily fascinated by the braid, the kid’s brown eyes eventually drifted down to Duo’s foot and his ball.

“Sorry about that, mister,” he said.  His voice was high; probably a sixth, maybe a seventh grader.  Hands in his back pockets and his hip tilted to one side, the kid scuffed the asphalt with the toe of his sneaker.  There was still a little bit of hard-pushed politeness left in him.  “Can I have my ball back?”

“You should be more careful,” Quatre said.  “You could hurt someone.”

The kid’s shoulders shifted forward.  “It’s just a soccer ball, and I said I was sorry.”

Quatre frowned.  Duo knew that he had less than a few seconds before the lecture started, which was just enough time.  The kid had to be from the same building; he had come out before Heero and Quatre and then loitered with his ball.  Unless he was waiting for someone, he should have headed off to a park to play.  _He doesn’t look like he’s waiting for anybody._

Kids were brilliant.  They were quick and observant.  They might not understand all the finer points, but their attention to detail could be second to none.  Little things adults missed—little things adults forgot—kids picked up on right away.  They held onto them like treasures, usually out of curiosity, sometimes out of need.  Making them let go, now that was hard part.

Duo’s mouth split into a wide smile.  “Don’t start, Quatre,” he said.  “A soccer ball isn’t going to kill me.”

Heero let out a noise caught somewhere between a laugh and a growl.  Quatre frowned at him, and Wufei’s fine eyebrows rose up to his hair.  Duo ignored them.

“You got some power, man,” he said, rolling the ball back onto the top of his foot and kicking it up to his knee.  Duo passed it from one knee to the other, bounced it up to his elbow, and let it roll down his shoulders to his hand.  The kid’s eyes were even wider than he hoped they would be when he passed the ball back.  “Going pro?”

The kid was quiet for a moment, eyes going from foot to knee, trying to pick apart the muscle movements and coordination.  When he looked up, he smiled.  He tossed the ball lightly between his hands. 

“Coach says I’ll make the state team next year.  I’ll be the youngest,” he said, shoulders rolling back for a moment.  Then the smile slipped from his face.  “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

_Still that young._ “Mom’s advice,” Duo asked.  He dropped down to a crouch when the kid nodded once.  “Well I’m not going to argue with a mom.  She knows tons of stuff.”

“Well, yeah.  She’s a teacher.”

“There’s a lot of stuff you can’t learn in any school.  Your mom knows pretty much all of it, so I’d listen to her,” Duo said with a nod.  He could almost feel the confused expressions drilling into his back.  “That stranger stuff?  That’s serious business, man.  There are some crazy people out there.”  Duo leaned forward, hand rising to the side of his face. 

“See that one,” he said, pointing at Heero with his other hand.  Duo glanced over at him and had to bite his tongue.  Heero’s irritated scowl never failed to make him laugh.  “He’s killed people.”

The kid turned his wide, brown eyes on Heero.  Heero, arms folded across his chest, actually locked his knees to keep from reeling back under the young scrutiny.  They stared at each other for a moment before the kid’s face scrunched up.

“No way,” he said, shoving finger at Heero.  “He’s not much bigger than me.”

Heero wasn’t that much bigger than anyone, actually, although he had a good foot and a half on the kid.  The growth spurt they had all gone through (finally) had ended much sooner for him, leaving him just over five-and-a-half.  It didn’t bother Heero as much as it used it, but it was still something of a sore spot.  Especially when not-so-politely pointed out by children. 

“So way,” Duo said, cutting across the telling twitch that always preceded less-than-polite commentary from Heero.  “Bullet, right between the eyes.”

“You’re a liar.”

Duo let out an exaggerated gasp. “I am not.  Guys, help me out here,” he said, craning his head back to look at them.

Quatre’s face was still pinched with confusion, and Heero was still struggling not to swear.  Wufei, however, had picked up on the cues. 

“He’s worse than a liar,” Wufei said, rolling his eyes.  “He’s a bad one.”

Wufei never could turn down an opportunity to tease him.  The kid laughed.

“Dude, you’re supposed to help me, not him,” Duo said. 

“I seem to recall you saying you didn’t need my help.”

“See, this is why I should keep my mouth shut,” he said, wagging a finger at the kid.  “I have the worst friends ever.”

“We’re your only friends.”

“And he’s the worst of all.”

 

“You guys are weird,” the kid said.  Duo shrugged.

“Most people are.  But yeah, okay, he’s never killed anyone and I’m a bad liar.”  Duo ran a hand over the back of his neck.  “We’re just a couple of college kids.”

“Mom says they’re all over the place ‘cause of Stockton.”

“Well we’re not from Stockton.  We’re from Colorado.”  At least he hoped it was Colorado.  Trowa’s personas could be ridiculously complicated.  Duo passed a quick, discreet glance to Heero.  His face had smoothed finally, and he gave a short nod.        

The kid’s nose scrunched up as he thought about it.  “That’s far,” he decided finally.

“Really far,” Duo agreed.  “Like seven hours by plane.”

“It was four, Duo,” Quatre sighed.

“Ish.”

“I don’t even like sitting in church for an hour,” the kid said.         

“Can you imagine being stuck on a plane, then,” Duo asked.  “Sheer torture.”              

“It was fine,” Quatre said with a smile.             

“Maybe for you.  My knee was going the whole time.”             

“I know,” Heero growled.  “It kept hitting me.”               

“How come you guys came out here then,” the kid asked.              

_Perfect._ Duo timed his looks as well as he could, glancing from Heero to Quatre and Wufei with just the right amount of awkward seconds.  He chewed on his lip for good measure.  Quatre picked up the cue this time and rubbed the back of his neck.             

“Well,” he started.  Duo let the word hang until the kid tilted his head.  “We’re kind of looking for someone.”              

The kid was definitely sharp.  It took only a few for his eyes to narrow and his shoulders to round forward.               

“He lives around here.  His name’s Tracey.”             

The kid took one step back.  “I should go inside.  Mom wants to go shopping before dinner.”               

_Pushed too fast.  Last try._ Duo let his smile slip a bit.  He nodded once.  “Yeah, alright.  Well, you keep clear of those strangers.  We’re just going to keep looking.”  Duo rose slowly.  He scratched the back of his neck, throwing a wistful look at the apartment building before starting to walk.  It took the others less than a second to move after him.               

It took the kid a couple more to catch up to them.             

“What’s he look like?”               

Duo stopped.  “He’s kind of tall,” he said, holding up a hand to give the kid an idea.  “And he’s skinny.  He’s got dark hair that comes to around here.”               

“I haven’t seen him,” the kid said after a moment of quiet shuffling.  Duo nodded once.               

“That’s okay.  We’ll be here for a while, so if you see him.” 

The kid caught up to them faster this time.  “How long have you been looking?” 

“Not long,” Duo said.  “A couple of weeks.” 

“A couple of weeks is long.” 

“That’s what I said,” Quatre muttered. 

“We thought he just, you know, we thought he moved,” Duo said, looking down at him.  “People have to do that sometimes.  But then he stopped talking to us, and then the number we had didn’t work anymore.  One week became two and then three and we didn’t hear from him at all.”  Duo sighed and shook his head.  “We were really tight.  Best friends, you know?  And we just, we want to make sure he’s okay.  That we didn’t do anything.”  _That’s it’s not totally our fault._ Duo bit back a flinch. 

He didn’t even make a full turn before the kid stopped him.  “He’s at work,” he said, looking down at the soccer ball in his hands.  Duo watched him scuff his sneaker against the asphalt and grip the ball tightly.  His chest tightened.  

If there was one thing kids always understood, it was losing a friend—and doing anything to get them back. 

“Yeah,” he asked.  

“He works mornings and stuff.  I saw him with his apron.  He gets home around five-thirty or six, when I get home from soccer on school nights.  He lives on my floor.” 

They already knew that.  Duo dropped down in front of him again.  “Thanks, man,” he said.  “We’ll come back around six then to see him.”  He paused, looking at the soccer ball, before taking it from the kid’s fingers.  He balanced it lightly on the kid’s foot.  “The key is balance.  If it’s not balanced here, it’s not going to work.  Then it’s not so much a kick.  It’s a lift.  Straight up, not out.  Got it?” 

“Got it.”

“It’ll take some practice, but you’ll get it.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he said, giving the boy a light pat on the shoulder before standing up.  “You got the skills.” 

The soft smack of the soccer ball on the asphalt followed Duo as he walked away.  The kid grumbled.  Duo smiled, until the kid called again. 

“Mom thinks he’s sick,” he said.  The kid was talking to the ball balanced on his foot again, his arms held out a bit to keep him from swaying.  “She says he looks funny, like he’s not sleeping.  And she thinks he’s skinnier.  She tried to invite him over for dinner two days ago and she thought he was going to be sick.” 

Duo didn’t need to look.  He could hear the soft, whining intake of breath from Quatre; if he listened a little harder, he was sure he would hear Heero grinding his teeth.  He smiled over his shoulder. 

“Your mom’s probably right,” he said.  “Thanks.” 

Duo waited until they were at the end of the block, far away enough that the scuffle of soccer ball and sneakers were just a suggestion of sound.  More than enough to keep most kids from overhearing.  Duo still pitched his voice low. 

“We’ve got almost three hours before he’s home,” he said, hands deep in his pockets.  “Let’s get some food.  Some not-crappy, not-convenience store food.” 

“There was that restaurant,” Quatre said after a moment, his stride lengthening until he was walking beside Duo.  “On the way to, to the supermarket.” 

“There were a couple of restaurants,” Wufei said, not mentioning the hesitation. 

“The Italian place, with the wrought iron table outside.  It looked pretty popular.” 

And popular meant that the food had to be decent at least.  “Was it Italian,” Duo asked.  “I don’t remember seeing a sign.”

“Duo, olive oil and garlic were practically pouring out the door.” 

“Lots of people use garlic and olive oil.” 

“Not like that,” he said.  For a minute, Quatre was smiling: an exasperated-but-amused lift of his lips.  The “oh Duo” smile.  It made Duo smile, but then the smile slipped off his face and it took everything Duo had not to sigh.  “So Italian?” 

“Why not?  It’s got to be better than that sandwich last night.”

“Or that soup,” Wufei said coming up on the other side of Quatre.  “Lukewarm and I’m very sure those were rocks painted to look like carrots.” 

“You can’t chew rocks.” 

“Fair point.  Dirt clods, then.  Half-frozen, orange-painted dirt.”

Duo waited a few seconds before dropping back to walk with Heero.  They listened to Quatre try to defend last night’s mistake of a dinner.  Then Heero glanced at him.

“I didn’t know you played soccer,” he said quietly. 

“I don’t,” he said, shrugging once.  “But stuff like that, it’s useful.  At the very least, it was a decent distraction from time to time.”

Duo didn’t usually talk about L2.  Not even with Heero.  He didn’t talk about the gang he ran with, the gang he lost.  He didn’t talk about the things he’d seen, the skills he learned or was forced to learn.  He didn’t talk about what he abandoned or what he kept, what he honed for its usefulness and what he simply clutched to his chest because he wasn’t ready to give it up.  Duo didn’t talk about L2, and Heero respected that.  So the almost casual reference took Heero by surprise.   His eyes widened.  His lips parted, and for a moment Duo regretted opening his mouth.

Then Heero’s mouth snapped shut.  He nodded once and looked away.  But after a moment, the back of Heero’s hand brushed against Duo’s.  It stayed, even after a few seconds.  Duo twisted his index finger around his.  For once, Heero didn’t pull away. 

Their fingers stayed hooked for the fifteen minutes it took them to find the restaurant, a chintzy little hole-in-wall sticking out like a sore thumb between the brick-and-mortar buildings on either side of it.  Heero squeezed Duo’s finger gently before pulling away, arms crossing over his chest as he looked at the curvaceous iron tables and chairs framing the door and its badly-stained glass window.  Duo cupped the back of his neck with his hands.

“Maybe it’s less costume-y inside,” Quatre suggested.

“Maybe someone’s going to owe me money,” Duo said smirking at the fake ivy-covered baskets. “Twenty bucks says there’s potpourri on every table.”

“You must like losing money, Maxwell,” Wufei said as he opened the door.  He frowned at the chime clanking over it. 

“I’m not spotting you this time,” Heero said.

“Once, okay?  You had to spot me once.”

“Once is enough when it’s two hundred dollars.”

“How was I supposed to know Baker was married?  She never wears her ring.”  Hacking records was against the rules of the game, and Duo had only noticed the tan line after the office Christmas party. Apparently, some people took issue with mistletoe. 

“You could’ve asked,” Quatre said. 

Duo draped an arm over Quatre’s shoulders as they followed Heero inside.  “Clearly, you have never played these kinds of games.”

The restaurant must have switched designers between the outside and the interior.  Inside, the walls were done in pale yellow, finished to look like the warm, worn stone of a Tuscan villa.  Excellent replicas hung on the walls, interspersed with sconces converted for electricity.  From the ceiling were small chandeliers.  They threw warm gold light across the ceiling, making the dining room oddly sunny despite its lack of windows.  Half of the round and square tables had candles, some bare wax and others tastefully covered with frosted glass.

The other half had small bowls of potpourri.

“Cover me and we’ll call it even,” Wufei said under his breath as the waitress, a slip of girl with floating red hair and a too-bright smile led them to a table.  Duo snorted and slipped a bill from his back pocket into Wufei’s hand. 

He wasn’t going to make _that_ mistake again.

The waitress led them to a small corner table between a sconce and a replica of some painting that Quatre probably.  Heero sat down first, taking the chair that had the best line of sight to all available doors.  Duo knew by his frown that there were at least two blind spots.  Duo sat beside him, closer to the wall.   Quatre and Wufei sat across from them.

“Can I start you boys off with some drinks,” the waitress said, to Wufei, while handing out menus. 

“Water,” Wufei said.

“Same,” Heero said.

“Make that three, please.”

“Could I have some tea,” Quatre asked.

“What kind would you like?”

“Whatever you have.”

She nodded, jotting down the order too fast to be legible to Duo.  “I’ll give you a couple of minutes to look over the menus.  Our daily specials are on the inserts inside the front cover.  Our soup of the day, which is prepared fresh, is minestrone.  I’ll be back in a couple of minutes with your drinks.”

Duo waited until she was at least four tables away.  “She’s gunning for you, ‘Fei.”

“Shut up and look at your menu.”

“Did you see that ‘come hither’ look she gave you?  Damn, she wants you.”

“Get your eyes checked.”

“She was oddly focused,” Quatre said, arms folded over his menu.  “She didn’t look at any of us when we ordered drinks.”

Duo could hear Wufei grinding his teeth behind his menu.

“If she stares at you when she’s taking our order, there’s a seventy-thirty shot that she’s going to try and slip you her number,” Duo said.

“Quatre, I don’t understand what half of this means,” Wufei snapped.  He shoved the menu under Quatre’s nose.  “You like Italian.  Explain some of this.”

Quatre knew enough about Italian, the language and the food, to be moderately impressed with the contents of the menu.  Duo knew enough to safely order pasta with meat sauce and steer Heero away from anything that might have mushrooms or eggplant in it.  Quatre suggested capellini with lemon and pepper to Wufei before deciding on something with vodka sauce for himself.

Quatre caught Duo’s smirk and rolled his eyes.  “Cooking burns off the alcohol.”

“Not all of it,” he said.  “Good thing you’re not driving.”

“None of us are, so if you want a wine or something.”

“Nah.  Unlike some people, I don’t drink before five.”

“I’m not drinking,” Quatre said, but there was a smile on his lips.  Duo smiled and pushed a little further.

“Semantics,” he said.  Quatre actually _laughed_.

Duo smiled at the way Quatre’s mouth rounded when he laughed and the way the corners of his eyes scrunched when he smiled.  It lasted less than a minute, until just before the waitress came back with a small tray of drinks, but the silence that followed felt a little lighter for it.  He had missed the familiar give-and-take they shared—the three-way banter, the light teasing, the casual touches, the occasional lingering hold.  There had just been too much stress these last two months for it.  There had been too much wondering, too much worrying, for that kind of ease.  Honestly, it kind of hurt because Duo did try.  He tried for normalcy.  He knew when to back off, of course; he knew when the empathy and the fear were too much for more than an occasional supportive touch.  But Duo did try to keep the play and the affection in their lives.

Most days, Quatre wanted none of it, which left Duo watching.  Watching the empathy eat Quatre from the inside out.  Watching the shadows pull on his face and lack of sleep bruise his eyes.  Watching the anger and the fear spill out of his mouth. 

That, on top of Heero, left Duo bone-deep exhausted.

Their waitress behaved herself when she was taking their orders.  She even went so far as to glance at Duo when he ordered for Heero and himself.  But she cast another one of those smolder smiles at Wufei as she left with their orders—a smile that Wufei thoroughly ignored—and when their dishes came, the capellini was the only dish that ended up in front of the right customer.

“You both ordered meat sauce,” Wufei muttered.

“Yeah, but vodka sauce is white,” Duo said as he handed Quatre his plate and took his meat sauce-with-eggplant from under Heero’s frowning nose.

The food was good, at least.  Better than good since it was proper temperature and showed no signs of having painted non-food stuffs hiding anywhere.  When their waitress brought a basket of bread, steam still curling from the lightly-toasted crusts, Duo broke a breadstick and offered Quatre half.  Quatre waved it off.  Just like he waved off a lot of things Duo had offered recently.

Duo tossed the broken bread onto Heero’s pasta a little harder than necessary.  Heero didn’t mention it, but as he took the warm bread in his fingers and used it to mop up sauce, Duo felt his knee shift.  It pressed gently against Duo’s.  Further down, Heero’s foot inched over until it was resting lightly on top of his. 

Duo smiled down at his half of the breadstick.  He bumped their knees together lightly before ripping off of a piece of warm bread and popping it into his mouth.

They were generally quick when it came to lunch.  The headquarters was always bustling with activity.  There was always a file to send, a report to finish, a meeting to sit in, or a mission to prep for.  They didn’t have time for a leisurely thirty-minute lunch.  Duo went down to the cafeteria because he needed to get away from his desk.  He needed those fifteen minutes where he wasn’t an operative.  He knew the others felt the same.

They could work through lunch; they’d probably get a lot more done if they did.  But Duo thought that he would go insane if he didn’t get those fifteen minutes to just walk away.   He didn’t understand how people could stand it.  He didn’t understand how Trowa could. 

When he was there, and Duo hoped against hope that he would be there, in the office, at his desk, again someday so he could scratch his head over it some more. 

Generally, they were quick eaters.  Today, however, they lingered.  They took small bites every few minutes and had an unusual preoccupation with soaking up every bit of sauce with bread.  Duo knew what they were doing.  They had two hours to kill, and not many places to do that in.  The hotel was uncomfortable, the boardwalk was both distracting and possibly dangerous, and sitting outside his apartment would ruin everything _and_ drive them nuts. 

Duo understood.  He just wished they would talk and make the silence a little less awkward. 

When he had finished his pasta and gotten most of the sauce with two-and-a-half breadsticks, Duo glanced at his watch.  They made managed to kill a little more than an hour.  Heero was almost finished.  Wufei was just behind him.  Quatre had barely touched his food.  Duo leaned back, draping his arm over the back of his chair.

“I’m going to need some coffee,” he said with a sigh.

“That poison not keeping you awake,” Wufei asked.

“I don’t drink it just for the caffeine, you know.”

“That stuff is packed with it, though.  If that’s not keeping you up, I don’t think coffee’s going to help.”

Duo shrugs. “Ever had a straight shot of espresso?  That’ll wake you up.”

“I thought you were going to stop drinking those energy things,” Heero said, watching him from the corner of his eye.

“I said I’d cut back, and I did.  First one in a couple of weeks, and I think I deserved it, thank you very much.”

“They’re really not good for you, Duo,” Quatre said.

“Neither is not finishing your food, but have I said anything?”

Quatre flushed lightly. “You just did.”

Duo tilted his head.  “So I did.  Finish up.”

“I’m pretty much done.  We can get the check and go.”

“I’m not leaving without my coffee, so finish up.  We can wait.”

Quatre’s lips pressed into a frown.  “I can get a box for it.”  _A box that’s going to end up in the trash._   Duo shrugged.

“You can, but vodka sauce sucks reheated.”  Duo hadn’t expected him to agree, but Quatre took one long look at his food, frowned, and picked up his fork.  Duo thought he caught a smile from Wufei before he ducked back over his food.  Heero’s fingers brushed over his thigh as he reached down to get his phone from his pocket.  Duo smiled. 

“Weren’t you ordering coffee,” Heero asked as he looked at the display. 

“Yeah.  You want something?”

Heero nodded once, snapping the phone closed with a frown.  “Could probably use the caffeine.”

The restaurant wasn’t crowded when they first came in: a few couples here and there.  Most of them were at least one table away from theirs and normal enough in their movements to warrant only a passing glance from Duo and a slightly longer one from Heero.  Closer to four-thirty, the early dinner rush was starting, complete with old couples and families with young children of various behaviors.  Even so, Duo thought it took her several minutes too long to finally notice his hand in the air, and several more to make her way over.

At least the coffee was good.

Heero finished a few minutes before the coffee arrived.  Wufei finished a few minutes after that, and Quatre almost fifteen minutes later.  He looked a little green around the edges when he finally pushed his plate away.  Having a full stomach must have been a bit uncomfortable for him after an extended period of shrunken meals.  Quatre looked a bit better, though, once he had a coffee cup in his hand.  They shared the first round, and then the second, in silence, nursing black and sugar-fortified coffee for as long as possible.  Heero simply couldn’t handle three cups of coffee in a row—he claimed it threw off his reaction time by some odd decimal percentage—and signaled for the check just after five. 

The check came in a small fake-leather folder that the waitress pushed across the table with her fingers.  “You can come up to the front at any time,” she said.  “I hope you enjoyed your meal.”  Heero waited until she had moved to another table before turning it towards him and flipping it open.  He paused.  Heero suddenly flipped it closed with an odd quirk to his lips.

“I think this is for you,” he said, pushing it towards Wufei.  Wufei frowned.  He picked it up, opened it, and swore.

“I always bet on the wrong things,” Duo sighed as Wufei frowned at the slip of ripped-out notebook paper.

“Depends on who you ask,” Wufei growled.  He stuffed the slip in his pocket and passed the folder back.  Duo was impressed.  Seven months ago, Wufei probably would have torn it up at the table, in full sight of her.  Zechs was rubbing off on him.  He was probably going to dump it in the first trashcan he saw outside.

They squared up the check, give or take a few bucks, paid, and stepped out into the evening.  The sun had dipped beneath most of the buildings.  Streetlamps were flicking on.  They stood in a small knot in front of the entrance.  Quatre looked down one end of the street, chewing on his lip.  Heero looked down the other, his right hand curling briefly into a fist.  Wufei stuffed his hands in his pockets.  Duo sidestepped out of the way of a couple heading into the restaurant, nodding at their curious look. 

He was the first one to turn around and head back to the apartment. 

There was something about the anticipation— _more like anxiety_ —that made the walk back longer.  Heero walked beside him, oddly stiff, and behind him, Duo heard an unusual scuffle as someone’s shoes didn’t quite leave the concrete every time they stepped.  Duo cupped the back of his head with his hands.

He wasn’t sure what they were going to do if Trowa wasn’t there.  And he might not be.  He could have come home earlier; he could come home later.  He might not come home at all.  Trowa could have stashed his stuff somewhere and used “work” as an excuse to leave without being caught.  Trowa usually put too much time and effort into his personas to abandon them just like that, but considering the circumstances.

Duo didn’t know what they would do if they met a locked door again.  Go back to the hotel, of course, but after that?  They would probably have to make a show of hunting him down.  That was, after all, why they were here.  But Quatre wouldn’t be able to stay.  He wasn’t even supposed to be here.  He would have to go home, by himself, to an empty house.  They would have to go somewhere, after Heero managed to track Trowa down again.  How long would that take?  A week?  Two?  _Another two months?_

Heero might have been their best operative, their perfect soldier, but Duo knew he wouldn’t be able to handle that.

He was praying, honest to god praying, when they rounded the last corner.  The apartment was a few buildings down, glowing a dull orange from the street lamps on either side of it.  Crisper, whiter light, however, spilled out from the entranceway.  So as they approached, they got a good look at the young man with the hood ducking inside.  One of the straps of his red apron got caught in the door.  They were close enough that Duo swore he could hear the rip of fabric as the young man yanked the strap free.

Duo was kind of amazed they didn’t break into a run. 

They did, however, take the stairs two at a time, until Heero stuck his arm out at the top and nearly knocked Wufei back down them.  Trowa’s apartment was roughly in the middle.  The hall’s ceiling was high enough that sound could carry.  They had no idea how thin the walls were.  Trowa’s apartment was far enough from the ground that a jump out of a window would seriously hurt, but it wouldn’t kill him.  If the window was in the right place, he might make it to another building. 

They approached the apartment quietly.  Duo was in front with Heero, so he felt rather than saw Quatre’s anxiety, mostly in the way Quatre kept treading on the back of his shoes.  Duo reached back.  He found Quatre’s wrist and touched it lightly.  He almost stopped dead in his tracks when Quatre took his hand and squeezed. 

Heero stopped outside of Trowa’s door.  Nondescript, paint peeling, without a nameplate.  He waited for a minute, listening until he could confirm the faint scuffling noises coming from inside were real and not some devastatingly-hopeful auditory illusion.   He didn’t look at any of them.  He didn’t wait for a nod.  Heero clenched his fist once and knocked.

Two solid raps against the door with his knuckles.  Inside, someone cursed. 

Behind him, Quatre let out a shaking sigh. 

Heero waited a few seconds before knocking again, and then a few seconds longer than that before knocking a third time.  The apartment had gone silent.  Duo chewed on his lip.  He could almost see Trowa, standing near a chair or a table, gripping the edge of it tightly, watching the door.  _Hoping that if he’s quiet long enough, we’ll go away._

Duo pinched the bridge of his nose.  This was going to be messy.  Normally, he didn’t mind messy.  It was something a challenge.  He didn’t want messy, though, not when it came to Trowa.  He wasn’t sure how well any of them would handle messy and Trowa.

Frowning, Heero glanced up and down the hall once before stepping closer to the door.  “We just want to talk,” he said, pitching his voice so that it carried through the door but not down the hall.  “Open the door,” he said.  Heero waited a moment before dropping his hand to the doorknob.  He twisted it slightly.  “We can kick this door in, regardless of the locks you have on it.  You know we can.”  Duo thought he heard a shift from inside the apartment.  “Please.”

Heero was careful about not saying his name; Trowa had built a life here.  A pathetic one, but still a life, and Heero wasn’t going to jeopardize that further than he had to.  But Duo could tell the name was dancing on his tongue, teasing at his lips.  He could see it in the way Heero moved his mouth silently.  He could hear it in the soft dip in his voice when Heero said “please.”

The apartment was silent for several, agonizing minutes.  Then Duo heard hard footsteps.  They stomped towards the door.  There was the sharp snap of a dead bolt sliding back.  The door didn’t open.

This time, Heero did look at them once before turning the doorknob.  Duo’s stomach dropped as the door opened.  They never _did_ find the gun Trowa used.  Heero assumed he had dropped it somewhere.  Trowa wasn’t attached to his weapons, but he never let a good tool go to waste. 

Trowa stood at a small dinette, clutching the back of one of the chairs with one hand.  He was crushing his apron with the other.  His mouth was pressed into a hard, sneering line.

There was no gun in visible reach.  Duo refused to relax.

“I hope you have a fucking warrant,” Trowa said through his teeth.

Heero unzipped his denim coat just enough to reach into the lining pocket.  The warrant had been in a pocket of some sort since Une gave it to them, so the bluish-white paper was creased.  Heero held it out to him.  Trowa looked at it briefly before his eyes darted up to Heero’s face.  They lingered before jumping to Wufei’s, then Quatre’s then Duo’s.  His lips twitched, amused and furious and so obviously miserable that it hurt.  

Then Trowa threw his apron on the table, ignored it when it slid off, and headed into the kitchen.

They waited until Trowa opened one of the cabinets, its door rattling loudly with the force of his pull, before moving.  Wufei slipped silently back to the door and closed it.  He slid the lock into place with a soft click.  Heero took a few steps to the side until he had a clear line of sight into the kitchen.  He didn’t take a single step forward.  Quatre made a few abortive attempts to head to the kitchen before going to the table.  He dropped down and picked up the apron.  He folded it carefully against his knees.  He dragged shaking fingers over it, smoothing out invisible wrinkles.

Duo stayed exactly where he was.  He already had a pretty decent view.  He could see the mismatched furniture on other side of him: table and chairs and side tables of different woods and varnishes; a narrow floral couch, its white base and purple flowers yellowed with use and age.  He could see the dings in the table legs, the chips in the tabletop, and the inch of dust on the piano’s lid.  More importantly, though, Duo could see Trowa, leaning back against the counter with a trembling glass of water, through the gap between the counter and the cabinets that broke the dividing wall between living room and kitchen. 

Black was _not_ Trowa’s color.  At least it wasn’t when his lightly-tanned skin was splotched with white and red and purple.   Trowa looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks, the bruises under his eyes thick and dark.  When he ducked his head, as he seemed to do often before moving strands of that god-awful black hair out of his face, they swallowed up his eyes completely.  His jaw was sharper than Duo remembered.  His cheeks were sunken.  Trowa’s face looked like a skull’s.

He looked _sick_.

Trowa sounded sick.  His voice was oddly breathy when he snapped, “If you’re going to arrest me, do it soon.  Otherwise, leave.  I have a four A.M. inventory I need to go to bed for.”

“Have you been going to bed at all,” Wufei asked.  The look Trowa gave him was short but bitter.  He turned his attention back to his water.  Duo was amazed he hadn’t dropped it yet.

“We can’t leave,” Heero said.

“I noticed.”

“You knew we were here,” Quatre said, the hurt plain on his face. 

“None of you are exactly difficult to spot.”  The words came out in a low hiss.  Quatre flinched, and for a moment Duo’s old irritation with Trowa was back.  They wanted to help him.  He didn’t have to be so sharp about it.  Duo ground his teeth and stepped forward.

Trowa’s head ducked, his chin nearly touching his chest as he turned his face to the side.  If it were brown again and sculpted, the sweep of his hair would have covered his face.  It would have hidden the momentary guilty twitch of his mouth. 

It didn’t, and Trowa realized that a moment too late.  He brought the glass to his lips and took a long drink.  Duo sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

“I guess we weren’t exactly subtle,” he said.  Duo thought the corner of Trowa’s mouth twitched up as he looked at him, but his lips were still around the glass, so Duo couldn’t be sure.  “But subtlety was never really our style.”

“Speak for yourself,” Wufei muttered.

“I’m pretty sure you blew up the first base, ‘Fei.”

“We can’t leave,” Heero said again. 

“Not without you,” Quatre added.

“Then arrest me.”

“Eventually, we’ll have to,” Heero said. 

Trowa’s brow knitted.  For the first time since they came in, he took a long look at each other them.  His dull, sunken eyes lingered on Quatre.  The fact that it had taken him this long to remember that Quatre was not a Preventer and therefore shouldn’t be here—and this was Trowa, who noticed when someone moved his stuff even a couple inches—was frightening.  Trowa turned away and refilled his glass.

“Eventually,” he said.  “What comes first?”

Everyone was silent, listening to the steady rush of water.  When Trowa turned it off, Quatre took a step forward.  “You could have told us.”

_Too soon, Quatre._ Duo could almost feel Trowa bristling.

“No.”

“You could’ve—”

Trowa turned.  “No,” he said, fingers tightening around the glass.  Duo worried for a moment that he might through it.  “We’re not—I’m not having this conversation.  Get out.”

“Trowa.”

“Get out.  I have to be up in seven hours.”

“We can’t just—”

“Of course you can.  The door’s right there,” he said.  “Go back to whatever hole you’ve been staying in, and come back when you’re actually going to arrest me.”

“Will you still be here,” Heero asked.  A sharp, guilty twitch went through Trowa’s shoulders.  “Quatre’s right.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Can’t you tell us now,” Duo asked.  He crossed his arms against the hard, angry sneer Trowa threw at him.  “So what?  You couldn’t tell us then, you can’t tell us now.  Are you ever going to tell us?”

“I told you all to leave.  Good night.”

“You ran,” Duo snapped.  “You shot the advisor, threatened to shoot Richards’ wife—”

“Threatened but didn’t, and I paid him extra for the, the trouble.”

Because money was worth a person’s life.  Duo bristled at the old, familiar callousness.  “You took off without saying anything.  Without even a ‘sorry.’  It’s been two fucking _months_ , Trowa.  You owe us.”

Trowa laughed.  It was the worst sound Duo ever heard. 

It was high and breathy and _wet_ , almost hysterical.  It rushed around the hand Trowa used to cover half his face.  And it just didn’t stop.  The hair on the back of Duo’s neck rose.  Quatre cupped his mouth as his brows knitted almost in pain.  Behind him, Wufei let out a strangled noise.  In front of them, Heero had gone rigid.  Duo was at just the right angle to see how white he had gone.

Then the laughing hitched and Trowa was coughing.  He was kept coughing, his body shaking.  He covered his mouth with his hand.  Trowa’s shoulders rolled forward as he gagged.  He turned.  Over the shatter of glass, they heard dry heaving.

Heero was the closet to the kitchen and got to Trowa first.  Wufei had the straightest line and got there second.  Duo barely made third, but he still got to see Trowa throw a punch that Heero easily dodged before he tried to twist out of Wufei’s grip on his shoulders.  Trowa pivoted, elbow high and aiming for Wufei’s temple.  Heero slipped in behind Trowa for another grab.

Halfway through his turn, Trowa went white.  His mouth dropped open almost in surprise.  By the end of the turn, he was already halfway to the floor, eyes rolling back.  His limp body slipped through Wufei’s arms.  Trowa’s head hit the floor with a hard thwack.      

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the current chapters are edited and up! Which means now I have no excuse not to work on 24. Chapter 24 is trying to kill me.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they try to take care of one of their own (and ahsim takes six fucking months to write a chapter ugh, sorry)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things have been difficult for the last couple months and it probably shows in my writing. Sorry guys. I'm trying to wrap my head around this project again.
> 
> No major warnings, except for some minor swearing and Trowa being a difficult patient.

           

“I’m pretty sure I asked you for _ice_ , Maxwell.”               

“There _is_ no ice, ‘Fei, so that’s going to have to do.  It should be cold enough.”               

“No ice…”               

“What do you mean there’s no ice—”               

“No ice.” 

“—Did you even wring this out?”               

“Yes, I wrung it out.  Stop squeezing it and it won’t drip.  And there’s no ice.  Shit, he doesn’t even have frozen vegetables.”               

“God damn it, Barton.”               

“No.  Ice.”               

“Yes, ice,” Wufei snapped.  “You’ve got a fever _and_ a concussion.  Congratulations.”               

Trowa let out a growl that had none its usual strength.               

Heero sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.  At this rate, Trowa wasn’t going to be the only one with a massive headache.  He leaned his shoulder against the wall of the small hallway that ran between the bathroom and the living room, the meager first aid kit dangling from his fingers.  When Quatre came out of the kitchen and joined the tense knot around the couch, Heero let his head thud silently against the wall.               

This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen.               

“That’s not the only thing he doesn’t have,” Quatre said.  He bent over the arm of the couch, arms crossed.  “Why is everything wilted, stale, or expired?”               

Between Wufei’s side and Duo’s hip, Heero saw Trowa tilt his head back slightly and glare without heat.  “It’s not.”               

“Oh I assure you, it is, or else you have found varieties that I really didn’t need to see.”               

“Lettuce staring at you, Cat,” Duo asked with a tired smile.  Quatre snorted.               

“I wish.  That could at least be funny.”              

“My food is fine,” Trowa muttered.               

“Your food is just this side of lethal, and has been that way for a while, by the looks of it,” Quatre said.  “When was the last time you even looked in there?”               

“Yesterday.”               

“Liar.”               

Heero let out a silent sigh and stepped off the wall.  Trowa wasn’t in any condition for an argument.  None of them were, actually, but him least of all; he’d only regained consciousness twenty minutes ago.  Heero crossed the living room in short, brisk strides.  He gave Quatre’s shoulder a light squeeze before pulling him away from the couch and turning him back towards the kitchen.  Heero pretended not to notice the sneer.              

He dropped the first aid kit into Wufei’s lap.  “Best he’s got is aspirin.”             

Wufei threw Trowa a look of intense irritation before snorting and going back to folding the large, wet towel.  “That’s better than nothing, I guess.”              

“One of us can run to the store later,” Heero said.               

“I’ll go,” Duo said.  Heero glanced at him, eyebrows raised.  Duo’s smile somehow warmed and thinned at the same time.  “Between Wufei and Quatre, we’ve got bed rest covered, and you’d be much better at pinning Trowa down.  I need something to do.”          

Duo also needed space.  Heero could see it in the stiff way he rocked forward onto his toes and the agitated way he ran his thumb over the tips of his fingers.  Duo was almost always moving, inactivity making him anxious and irritable.  Proximity and intimacy, however, had allowed Heero to notice subtle differences.   Relaxed or worried, Duo always played with his fingers; the difference between them could be as small as which finger he started with.             

If anyone else noticed, they didn’t mention it.  Wufei let out a low, thoughtful noise as he leaned forward to put the folded, wet cloth on Trowa’s head.  “That’d be helpful.”            

Trowa didn’t have the strength or the energy to avoid Wufei, although he certainly tried.  He ducked awkwardly from beneath his hand before pushing at him.  Wufei nudged his hand aside.  It took Trowa several seconds to find the will to get it to move again, and by then Heero had already caught his wrist and pinned it to the couch.  Trowa turned bleary, narrow eyes up at him.  His mouth worked into an irritated line.             

Then Wufei draped the cloth across his forehead.  Trowa’s expression fell beneath the cool touch.  Heero sighed and sat down on the arm of the couch.              

“If you’re going out,” Quatre said, coming out of the kitchen again, “you might as well get a few things.  Right now, all I can make is toast, and not much of it.”             

Trowa’s face grayed at the mention of food.  His voice, however, was surprisingly steady.             

“If you all are hungry, I can suggest a few places,” he muttered.               

“Not for us.  For you.”  The muscles in Trowa’s neck worked as he swallowed hard and gagged.               

Duo nodded.  “Yeah, we already ate.  Besides, you think we’re going to leave you like this?”               

Trowa’s irritation was just enough to get his hand moving.  He managed to pull the towel partly off his forehead before Heero pinned him gently back to the couch.  He threw Duo a look before fixing the cloth on Trowa’s head.                

Duo gave him a faint, strained smile before looking back at Quatre.  “What do you want?”               

“Fruits, vegetables, bread.  Stuff for stock.  I guess a couple of canned soups, too, to tied us over until I get something made.”               

This time, Heero matched the face Trowa made.  As long as he didn’t have to eat that processed swill.               

Duo nodded as he made mental notes.  “Anything in particular I should look for?”              

“Clear soups.  Nothing that says ‘hearty’ or ‘cream.’  You should probably stay clear of anything with noodles or rice in it, too."               

“So no chicken noodle.  Isn’t that the staple sick food?”              

“Not when you’re half-starved and dehydrated.”               

Heero caught Trowa’s wrist before it reached his cheek.               

“Good point.”  Duo swung his jacket onto his shoulders and patted down his pockets.  “‘Fei?”               

“Anything for fevers that’s not aspirin,” he muttered, sitting back and folding his arms.  “Cold medicine or something should be fine.”               

“Pick up something for his stomach, too,” Heero said, his hand reaching down to press lightly on Trowa’s wrist.  Trowa strained against him for a second.               

“Got it,” he said.  Duo zipped up his coat and headed towards the door.  “I’ll be back.”               

“Got enough,” Quatre asked.               

“As long as I don’t go crazy, I should.  Otherwise, I’ll just smile and bat my eyes.”               

Trowa snorted.  “Pray Holly’s not ringing you up, then,” he muttered.               

“Take some extra, Duo,” Heero said.               

“I was kidding,” Duo said as he opened the door.  “I’ve got plenty.  Don’t worry about it.  I’ll be back—oh.”               

Duo rocked back away from the door, stumbling once.  The boy, skinny and with a fist raised to knock, looked at him briefly before lowering his arm.  It took Heero a second to recognize him as the boy with the soccer ball.  His jaw clenched momentarily.                

The boy looked around with curious, brown eyes.  He stopped briefly on each of them before locking onto Trowa.  His hand raised a bit.               

“Hi Tracey,” he muttered.              

“Hi Sam,” Trowa said.  It took everything Heero had not to stare.               

Trowa didn’t sound stronger when he slipped into “Tracey” as easily as any of them would slip into clothes (although he did manage to sit up by himself).  He sounded weaker.  It had nothing to do with exhaustion or fever or injury.  There was just something about this “Tracey,” about this personality that Trowa had made, that was frail.  Damaged.              

Heero already decided that he didn’t like it; he had no idea how Trowa could stand it.              

“Mom wanted to know if you had plans for dinner,” Sam said.  Trowa nodded once and fiddled with the wet towel that had landed in his lap.              

“That’s nice of her, but I’ve kind of got company right now.”              

“They’re invited, too.”  He pushed back some of the curly brown hair that had fallen into his eyes.  “It’s just meatloaf, but Mom says it’ll be better than the convenience store stuff they’ve been eating.”              

Wufei shifted before glancing towards Heero.  Quatre and Duo’s looks were a slightly more noticeable.  Heero frowned.  He couldn’t remember seeing a woman who shared physical features with this boy near the apartment (although he supposed that mothers and children didn’t always share features for one reason or another).  He couldn’t remember seeing that many people near the apartment, period (although he would admit he had been rather distracted).  Still, Heero should have noticed someone paying that much attention to them.   Clearly, he was losing his touch.              

Which didn’t endear Sam to him any further.              

“That’s nice of her,” Quatre said, arms folded over his waist and a smile on his lips. “Tell her we said thanks but no thanks.  We already ate.”              

Sam stared at him before turning his attention back to Trowa.  Trowa gave him a faint smile.             

“It’s probably not a good idea tonight anyway, Sam.  Holly thinks I caught the flu.”              

Heero kept his eyebrows from raising.  It was a better cover than he could have come up with so quickly.  Considering the slow reaction times and disorientation he had been showing, though, Heero was surprised Trowa came up with it at all.               

“Yeah,” Sam asked, looking Trowa over more thoroughly, as if he only just noticed he had been sprawled on the couch.        

“Yeah.  I don’t think your mom would appreciate me giving it to you two.”              

“I don’t mind,” Sam said, smiling.  “I’ve got a math test this week.”             

“Erin might.  Doesn’t she have a field trip soon?”               

The smile fell.  “Oh yeah.”               

“You better get home before you catch it.”               

“What about them?”               

“Don’t worry about us,” Duo said before Trowa could even open his mouth.  “These guys never get sick, and I already got the flu once this year.  It’s like chicken pox: get it once, you’re clear for the year.”               

Sam didn’t question the lack of logic or simple medical knowledge—Heero supposed he was too young to care—and just smiled up at Duo.  He rocked back and forth on his toes.                

“I got to my elbow before Mom called me in.”               

Duo, leaning against the door, whistled.  “Nice.  Knew you had it in you.  Keep practicing and you’ll have a thing or two to show those state boys.”              

Sam smiled before turning back to Trowa.  “Do you want leftovers?  Mom made plenty.”               

“No thanks, Sam.”              

“She’s going to make me bring some over anyway, so you might as well say yes.”              

Trowa gave a single, watery laugh that made the hairs on Heero’s neck rise.  “True.  I’ll find space for it in the fridge.”               

“‘Kay.  Feel better, Tracey.”              

“No doubt about that.  I’m in good hands.”              

Trowa stayed up until Sam had to be halfway to his own apartment.  Then he swayed.  He didn’t bother fighting as Wufei guided his falling torso away from the edge of the couch.  He narrowly missed hitting his head on the couch arm or Heero’s knee.              

Duo closed the door a bit before frowning over his shoulder.  “Meatloaf?”              

“Do I even want to know what you taught him,” Trowa muttered.               

“Soccer trick.  Meatloaf?  Seriously?”  Trowa shifted before managing an awkward shrug.               

“Tracey’s not a vegetarian,” he explained.               

“Clearly,” he muttered.  Duo, hand on his hip, looked Trowa over once before nodding slowly.  “Yeah, I don’t think I like ‘Tracey’ all that much—”               

“You don’t have to,” Trowa said.               

“Can’t say I’m going to miss him.”               

Duo didn’t linger.  Heero bit back a sigh as he rose and moved to shut the front door.  With the distance and the load and his obvious need for time, Duo would probably take at least half an hour.  Probably closer to a full hour.  Heero locked the door and leaned back against it, arms folded.               

“Can’t say I disagree,” he said after a moment.  Trowa peered around Wufei’s hip and the wet towel  draped back over his head.  “About not liking him.”               

“Don’t remember anyone asking you to,” he said.       

“You could have made someone different.” 

“I didn’t need someone different.  I needed him.”               

Heero supposed that was true.  Trowa had needed to disappear, and although he had only seen a few of the personalities he crafted (and one much closer than the others), Heero knew that most of them weren’t meant for that. The worst of them skated the outer edge of the radar: hard to notice, harder to track, unless you knew exactly what you were doing.  Which Heero did.  Trowa had needed someone worse.  He had needed someone who couldn’t leave even a second-long blip.  He needed mediocre.  Helpless.  Pathetic.               

Tracey was certainly that.  Heero was almost impressed with how long Trowa had lasted with it.              

Across the living room, Quatre leaned back against the dividing wall and frowned.  “He couldn’t be a vegetarian, too?”               

“It didn’t suit him,” Trowa said, rolling his head carefully towards him.  Wufei caught the towel before it slid off.  “It’s only a problem when Cass shoves food at him.”               

Considering the green that briefly tinged Trowa’s face as he mentioned it, Heero assumed that was fairly regular occurrence.               

The color change wasn’t lost on Quatre.  “How often is that?”               

“Not as often as she’d like.  Accepting dinner invitations also doesn’t suit him.”               

“And mirrors,” Heero asked.  Now seemed as good a time as any to mention the empty space above the sink in Trowa’s small bathroom—the space with unused support hooks.  Quatre and Wufei threw him curious looks, so they missed the embarrassed and irritated flush that darkened Trowa’s already fever-pink face.  Heero locked himself against the guilt.  “Those don’t suit him either?”               

“Tracey doesn’t care one way or another,” Trowa said.  “I didn’t want it there.”               

It was the most strength Trowa had had in his voice since before he had passed out.  It left an awkward, ringing silence.  Heero shifted against the door.  He had found one or two bits of glass on the floor under the base of the sink.  They could have easily fit under a fingernail.  Trowa must have used an excessive amount of force to break it.  His knuckles would have been more than enough, but even from the door, Heero could tell they were fine.  A little swollen, perhaps, but they bore none of the signs of severe impact trauma.  Trowa must have hit with something.  Hard and fast.  He might have left an impression of it on the wall: an impact mark of some sort.  Heero could probably figure out the general weight and shape of the object Trowa had used if he examined it.              

He didn’t need to know.               

Quatre shifted after a moment, stepping off the wall and letting his arms down.  Wufei shook his head as he opened his mouth.               

“We can discuss this later,” he said.  “Right now, you need to sleep.”               

“You’re not supposed to sleep with a concussion,” Trowa muttered.  Wufei rolled his eyes.               

“Fine, doze.  Just stop talking.”              

Wufei tugged the damp cloth down Trowa’s forehead until it was draped over his eyes and the bridge of his nose.  He held it there carefully with his hand.  Trowa shifted and batted at him a few times before letting his hand dropped.  Wufei waited a second before taking his hand off Trowa’s head.  He moved the limp, fallen hand from Trowa’s side to his stomach, and almost smiled when Trowa moved it back.              

There was no clock that they could see, but Heero’s internal clock was as good as ever.  Quatre waited several seconds before making an abortive move towards the couch and then disappearing back into the kitchen.  Wufei lingered at Trowa’s side for several minutes, fingers on his pulse, before rising and heading down the hall to the bathroom.  After five minutes, Heero was still standing with his back against the door.  He was tempted to remain, but Duo wasn’t due for at least forty-five minutes—much too long not to be suspicious.               

Trowa’s laptop was on the table, neglected to some degree, judging by the fine layer of dust on the top of it.  Heero’s was in the hotel room; he hadn’t thought to bring it, which was a mistake.  There were reports he could finish.  At the very least, he could submit a status update.  Heero could keep himself occupied.  Unfortunately, his laptop wasn’t here, and Trowa’s was, and while he knew that Trowa hadn’t bothered with internet, most of the other tenants did.  Hacking one of theirs would be easy.  Getting into Trowa’s computer, less so although the challenge would be refreshing.              

Heero stepped away from the door and wandered into the kitchen.               

Quatre moved about the kitchen with the grumbling confidence of someone who knew the place and was thoroughly disappointed.  He put an empty pot on the stove and a knife and cutting board on the counter before crouching down and rummaging through one of the cabinets.  Heero drifted towards the sink.  Half-a-loaf of bread was waiting in it.  It was crusted over with ice.  He gave the solid slices a light poke before looking around, spotting the microwave, and deciding to get a knife.               

Quatre brought over a battered kettle as Heero slowly worked slices apart with the knife.  He watched the knife sink too fast through the last quarter of the current slice and scrape hard against the bottom of the sink.               

“Just don’t cut yourself,” Quatre said.               

“How many slices?”               

“They’re small,” he said, maneuvering around Heero’s arms and holding the kettle under the faucet.  “Three or four should do.”               

Heero nodded and worked the last slice apart.  “Plates?”              

“Second cabinet on the left.  Cover them with a paper towel first.”               

Nodding, Heero left the knife and bread in the sink and stepped away, careful not to upset the kettle.  The cabinet had only a few plates of varying sizes.  Heero found a medium sized one closer to the back.  He brought it back to the sink and piled the frozen bread slices on it.             

“How long?”               

“Twenty or thirty seconds.  Make sure you use the defrost setting.  There should be a button.”               

“Got it.”               

Quatre moved away, carrying the full kettle to the stove.  He set it on a burner.  He tried turning it on twice before noticing the valve at the back.  He grumbled about gas burners.  At least he didn’t need a match to light it; Heero wasn’t sure if they would find any.               

Heero realized, as he took the plate to the microwave and draped a paper towel over the slices before popping it in, that that had been the most they had said to each other without getting at least irritated with one another.  It was not something he was particularly proud of. 

Heero didn’t exactly blame Quatre for his recent shortness or lack of control, over his emotions and his empathy.  It was unrealistic to expect an empath to always keep an absolute grip on himself, especially when everything seemed to be tugging and pulling and chipping away at it.  It was unrealistic for Heero to expect him to be okay after two months of stress on every side, after two months of living and working with people who had little to no control of their emotions and the residue they left on Quatre’s senses.  

It was unrealistic, and Heero wasn’t anything if not realistic.  He didn’t blame Quatre for any of that.  He accepted all of that.  The jealousy, however, was a different matter. 

Quatre was jealous—or perhaps it was envious.  He didn’t have Trowa’s affection after all, and wasn’t possession a prerequisite for jealousy?  Then again, Heero didn’t have Trowa’s affection either, and it was the want of what another had that defined envy.  Heero supposed it didn’t really matter.  Quatre was _something_ and had been this something for several months.  It hadn’t particularly bothered him (concerned him, yes, but not bothered) until recently, when he became the focus of it.  He hadn’t minded the grumbling and unsubtle glares when they were directed at a nameless, faceless boyfriend; actually, Heero had joined him—privately—in his irritation quite a few times.  Directed at him, though, put Heero’s “back against the wall,” as Duo described it.  Being quite familiar with the tension and the defensiveness and the shortness, he had been able to explain it when Heero had admitted that he had been less than two words away from punching Quatre in the mouth.  

An explanation, of course, didn’t stop that unnecessary feeling, or the occasional desire to cause Quatre harm; it did, however, make Heero aware.  Once he was aware, he could control himself.  At the very least, he could ignore those feelings or urges until he had time or privacy.  Sometimes both.  Unfortunately, none of them had gotten much of either in the last month or two.   But now that Trowa was here— 

Except Trowa wasn’t here.  Not really, not the Trowa he remembered.  Heero bit back a sigh, shook his head once, and removed the bread from the microwave.   The pieces were soft.  Too soft, actually; the paper towel was sticking to them.  Heero brought the plate over to the toaster before attempting to peel it off.      

Trowa had been keeping the toaster on the counter running along the dividing wall.  So Heero had an excellent view of the couch while he carefully removed the towel from the bread.  Trowa was sleeping, as far as he could tell, or at least he was doing an excellent impression of it.  His chest was rising and falling at the exact rate Heero would expect for an ill, sleeping person, and there was a calm slackness to his mouth.  Every so often, he would shift and the hand on his stomach would tense, but Trowa never attempted to get up or move.  Best of all, he hadn’t tried to take off the towel.  Heero had been sure that was the first thing he would try once Trowa realized he had been temporarily relieved of them.

With Trowa asleep, though (or faking it beautifully), Heero had the opportunity to survey the damage.  He had been avoiding it, which was unlike him, but he just didn’t want to, which was also unlike him.  Trowa tended to cause those kinds of reactions, though.  When Trowa was awake, it was easy for Heero to ignore what had happened to him.  There were other immediate (and unemotional) concerns he could dedicate his focus to.  Now that Trowa was resting and the others had dispersed and there was nothing more pressing than the toaster, Heero couldn’t stop himself from focusing in.

Trowa was thin.  He had always been thin, of course, but the bones of his hands had never pushed quite so hard against his skin before.  The cut of his jaw and the angle of his cheek bones were sharper too.  And Trowa was pale.  Not the pale Heero was used to: a few shades darker than Quatre but quite a bit lighter than Duo.  Trowa looked almost gray, except for his eyes.  His eyes were blue and purple and disturbingly sunken.  And then there was the hair.  The black _might_ have suited Trowa when he was well.  When he was sick, it just made him corpse like.  Honestly, Heero wished he had cut his hair or even shaved his head.  

Heero was just noting how badly Trowa’s clothes fit him—exactly how much weight had he lost, and over how long—when a particularly burning smell caught his attention.  The toaster popped.  One of the mostly charred pieces jumped too high and tumbled over the side.  Behind him, Quatre made a noise.  It took Heero several seconds to realize it was almost a laugh. 

“Maybe I should have mentioned to check the settings,” Quatre said, his tone lighter than it had been in weeks.

“Maybe you should have,” Heero agreed, letting a smile drift into the words. “We’re all kind of helpless in the kitchen compared to you.” 

Quatre smiled.  “We can scrape most of it off.”

Once Heero had started the second two slices, and adjusted the settings, he followed Quatre over to the refrigerator.  Quatre had apparently decided to tackle the refrigerator while the water boiled.  He had the kitchen trashcan propping open the door.  Heero wrinkled his nose at the unpleasant sourness coming from it.  The shelves weren’t exactly bare but they still looked unused.  Heero glanced into the trashcan as Quatre rummaged around a drawer.  Quatre had tossed quite a few things, and there was still plenty left in the refrigerator.  

Quatre came back with a knife, and then Heero started adding charred toast-topping to the pile.

Wufei came into the kitchen when Heero started on the back side of the first piece.  His eyebrows raised. 

“Toaster’s broken?”

“Toaster’s fine, as long as the settings are right,” Heero answered.  “The settings weren’t right.”

“Clearly,” he said.  From the stove, the kettle let out a low whistle.  Quatre sighed and rocked back onto his heels.  Wufei shook his head.  He walked around them and set the kettle on one of the back burners.  

“Cups are in the cabinet on the left,” Quatre called.

“Is there a reason,” Wufei asked as he looked through the cabinet, “why you’re throwing out perfectly acceptable tupperware?”

“Would you like to try to clean the mold out?” 

Wufei grimaced.  “No.”

“Well, neither do I,” Quatre said, dumping the armful he had in the trash.  “We’ll buy more later.”  He glared down at the trash can.  It was more than half full.  “This needs to get tossed before it stinks up the place or attracts anything.”

Heero nodded once and moved onto the second slice of burnt toast.  “There should be a dumpster or cage around somewhere.”

“Probably around back,” Wufei agreed.  “Tea?”

“Cabinet left of the sink,” Quatre said.  “At least he has that.” 

“And not much else.  Your toast is done.” 

“We can run it downstairs once he’s eaten, and you’ve finished with the fridge.”

Quatre sighed.  “Might be two trips.  I haven’t even touched the vegetable drawer or the freezer.”

“Then it takes two trips,” Heero said, shrugging and scraping off the last of the burn.  He took the two scraped pieces back to the toaster, left them on the plate, and went to the sink to wash his hands.  Trowa probably wouldn’t appreciate char-flakes on his food. 

“So tea and toast,” Wufei said as he set the steeping tea near the plate.  He plucked the two pieces from the toaster and put them on the plate.  “That’ll do, for the moment.”

“I’ll start some clear stock once Duo gets back,” Quatre said. 

Heero wasn’t sure Trowa would be able to stomach either of them at the moment.  Still, he followed Wufei out of the kitchen with the toast.  Wufei set the tea on the end table before sitting carefully on the edge of the couch.  He laid his hand over Trowa’s, and then shook it when Trowa didn’t move at all.

“Wake up for a minute.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Trowa said, after several seconds.  There was a distinct heaviness to Trowa’s voice and it made Wufei’s lips twitch towards a smile.

“Of course you weren’t.  Can you sit up?”

“Why?”

“You know, I was kind of hoping you would be less irritating now, being sick and all. "

“I’m not irritating.”

“That remains to be seen.  Sit up.”

“Why?”

“Clearly, I was wrong,” Wufei said, glancing at Heero with a sigh.  Heero shook his head.  He set the plate down next to the tea and walked to the couch arm.  He leaned over, slid his hands under Trowa’s shoulders, and carefully started to push him up.  The noise Trowa made would have been amusing in other circumstances. 

“Come on, sit up for a minute,” he said.  Trowa twisted, nearly dumping himself forward off the couch.  Wufei caught his shoulders and steadied him. 

“Get off.”

“In a second,” Wufei said as he and Heero moved Trowa until his back was supported somewhat by the couch arm.  When he was satisfied, Wufei reached around Trowa.  Heero passed him the plate before sitting on the arm.  Wufei set the plate in Trowa’s lap. 

“Here.”

Trowa swallowed.  “No.” 

“You need to eat something.  I don’t want you taking anything on an empty stomach.”  Trowa frowned at him.  “It could mess with your stomach pretty badly, and believe me, that’s worse.”

Trowa gave Wufei a look that clearly disagreed.

“One piece at least,” Heero said, picking up the tea and holding it between his hands.  The movement caught Trowa’s attention.  He looked at the tea, his eyes focusing on it for a moment and his face almost regaining a touch of color.  Heero almost smiled.  That was something, at least.  Sighing, Trowa looked at the plate.  He picked up the top piece with two fingers and held it for half a minute before trying to break off the corner.   When Trowa had finished off all four corners, Heero offered him the tea.  Trowa took a long, slow sip of it and passed it back.

Trowa managed to get through almost two pieces.  He ate slowly, ripping off small pieces and chewing them with unusual care before swallowing hard.  A sip of tea every now and then, though, seemed to keep him going.  Halfway through his first piece, Wufei had reached down and picked the wet towel off the floor.  He gave it a squeeze, frowned, and took it to the kitchen.  Heero hadn’t paid much attention to him after that, except to notice that the water in the sink never actually ran.  Quatre might have grabbed him for a moment.  He might have been checking the water in the kettle.  Trowa had drank more than half.  He was going to need more. 

Trowa stopped eating during his second piece.  His pace had slowed considerably, and although he accepted the tea when Heero pushed it on him, Trowa took smaller and smaller sips.  Finally, Trowa just pushed it back.  He swallowed hard and repeatedly, one hand at his throat.  His other hand covered his mouth.

Heero cursed.  “Wufei!” 

Wufei must have looked first because he came back with the kitchen trashcan.  Heero got the plate and the mug out of the way before Trowa pitched forward.  He lunged after him, wrapping his arms around Trowa’s chest.  His stomach clamped hard beneath Heero’s arm.  Wufei grabbed Trowa’s shoulders and turned him.  Trowa’s head was practically in the trashcan when he started retching.

Trowa spent an unnerving amount of time with his head in the trash—either because he was that ill or the rotten food was pungent enough to maintain the reaction.  Wufei held the bottom of the trashcan, not trusting Trowa’s tight but quivering grip.  Heero shifted his grip, moving his arm down towards Trowa’s hips.  It would still keep him up but, hopefully, it would be a little easier on his stomach. 

Soon (but not soon enough) the gagging stopped.  Trowa panted for a few seconds, clutching at the edges.  His fingers flexed once before he tried to push himself up.  The trashcan wobbled.  Heero put a hand on Trowa’s shoulders and helped pull him up. 

“Just one piece next time,” Wufei said slowly. 

Trowa sank back against Heero, panting and shivering.  He sat there for several seconds as he shakily pulled hair from his cheek and mouth.  He didn’t seem to mind when Heero’s arm tightened around his waist or his fingers moved slightly along Trowa’s heaving side.  Then Trowa’s fingers found a very wet chunk of bread.  He grimaced as he plucked it from his hair.

Heero hadn’t even thought to pull Trowa’s hair back. 

“Come on,” he said, moving carefully out from behind Trowa.

“Come on where,” Trowa asked, his voice low and rough and wet.

“Bathroom,” he said.  Heero grabbed Trowa’s bicep.  Trowa tried to twist out of his grip.

“I’m fine.”

“You should at least brush your teeth,” Heero said.  “Can you take that out, Wufei?”

“Sure.  Quatre, can you find the trash bags?”

Quatre had followed Wufei when he rushed out of the kitchen with the trashcan.  He must have stumbled to a stop at the end of the kitchen; he was still leaning against the wall, watching with an odd look on his face.  At the question, though, he jolted.

“Hang on,” he said before darting back into the kitchen.  Heero shook his head once and returned his attention to Trowa.  He had gotten Trowa under both arms and was trying to help him stand.  Trowa twisted and pulled every second.

“Get off, Heero,” he growled.  “I can walk.”

“Fine, then do it,” Heero growled back.  He let go. 

Trowa fell back onto the couch with an undignified gasp.  His face turned a sudden, sharp white.  Heero worried for a moment that he had set Trowa’s stomach off again; the fall wasn’t very far and the landing wasn’t very hard but Trowa was clearly very sensitive at the moment.  Trowa swallowed once, twice, and then his fingers loosened from the grip they had on the couch.  Trowa’s mouth worked into something closer to its usual line.  He lifted his chin and shifted before starting to push himself off the couch. 

Trowa would do it.  He would stand on his own two feet out a pure stubbornness, and then he would take a step and probably fall face-first into the trash.  If Heero let him.

Heero waited until Trowa realized that outcome for himself before grabbing his arm.  He pulled Trowa straight as he teetered forward.

“Point proven,” Heero said as he drew Trowa’s arm over his shoulders.  “Come on.”

Trowa didn’t struggle or argue, although he kept up a frown that clearly said he still though he could make it on his own.  Even so, Heero struggled with getting him to the bathroom.  Trowa wasn’t the tallest anymore—Duo had finally beaten him—but he still had more than an inch or two on Heero.  Worse, Trowa’s legs were hardly stable.  Trowa’s weight lay awkward and unbalanced over Heero’s shoulders; he was glad the walk was short.

Heero had a few options once they reached the bathroom, although he liked none of them.  He didn’t quite trust Trowa to be able to stay up on the toilet; the narrow ledge of the tub was completely out of the question.  He could put Trowa in the tub.  It would be appropriate, considering he needed to get Trowa cleaned up.  Trowa’s clothes would be a problem, though.  They would need to come off, or they would get soaked and then need to come off.  Trowa probably wouldn’t like that.

When they got into the bathroom, Heero did a quick comparison of the size of the trashcan and the height of the tub walls and decided Trowa could sit on it, as long as Heero stayed within reach.  The edge of the tub would be fine for him.  Heero sat Trowa on the floor, letting Trowa grab the edge of the tub and lower himself (although it was more of a drop) the rest of the way.  He went over to the toilet and got the trashcan that was tucked between it and the wall.  It was metal, rather tarnished, but sturdy and empty.  Heero turned back with it. 

Trowa was watching him, which wasn’t particularly surprised.  He was more slumped than sitting against the tub, which wasn’t surprising at all.  His knees were raised, though, and one pale hand was clutching at the neck of his shirt.  Trowa’s breath came out in slow, trembling bursts. 

No, Trowa didn’t like the idea of removing his clothes, at all.  The fear and distrust on his face were almost painful. 

Heero set the trashcan near him.  “Can you get yourself on that?”  Trowa looked at it before rolling his eyes up to Heero.  His hand didn’t loosen from his shirt.

“Heero.”

“I can get you on it, but I thought I should ask,” Heero said.  He turned to inspect the shower head.  “Just don’t tip it over.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

Heero looked down at him, frowning.  “Of course I do,” he said slowly.  Trowa held his gaze for a second before turning away and shifting his shoulders against the tub.

“That was different,” he said finally.  “You almost died.”

Yes, Heero decided once he realized what Trowa was referring to, that had been different.  He had barely been able to move, then, all those years ago, and Trowa hadn’t dared to move him anymore than necessary.  So Trowa had done everything with the utmost care.  He changed the linens and bandages without complaint.  He cleaned any exposed skin with warm water and a mild soap and a clean, sturdy rag.  He had figured out—when Heero’s back was strong enough to take it—how to wash Heero’s hair with a chair, a bowl of water, and a pitcher. 

And when he woke and before he slept, Trowa had worked his body.  His long, cool fingers had run over Heero’s skin with a quiet certainty, rubbing muscles and working joints to prevent sores, stiffness, and atrophy.  He never asked if Heero minded, and he never missed a session, even after a show or a long day training and working on the circus grounds.  Sometimes Trowa had talked as he worked on Heero, and sometimes he hadn’t, but there was always a sense of care in the push and pull of his fingers.  And Heero had never known what that meant.  He never asked because the chance that it meant nothing—that the care was clinical, the cool closeness of someone looking after a valuable asset and not an individual—was too great.  Even when Trowa was just someone Heero owed his life to, he didn’t dare ask.

Because the memory of that intimacy was warm and sweet, and so little had been warm then.

So, yes.  It was different, and not just because their roles were reversed and Trowa hadn’t tried to kill himself spectacularly (which was debatable).  There was time between them now.  Memories.  There was the war.  There was the awful moment when Trowa turned on him and Heero thought it was real.  There was the bittersweet relief when Trowa turned up on the colonies after Vayeate, remembering none of them.  There was Mariemaia and the last stand in Brussels and the bright flash that ended their time as pilots.  There was the difficult adjustment to civilian life, and the less-difficult adjustment to working in law enforcement. 

There was Trowa moving in and the two weeks that he hadn’t had a bed because of the worst kind of miscommunication.  There were months of breakfasts and dinners and weekends at home and away.  There was the constantly choking engine and the week  Heero and Trowa would spend taking it apart. 

There was _Trowa_.

There was certainty.

“Yes, and no,” Heero said finally, letting his hand drop to his side.  He perched carefully on the edge of the tub.  “It depends on which part you’re referring to.”

Trowa was easier to read when he was sick and most of his usual defenses were down.  The look he gave Heero, though, was too new or too complicated for him to pick apart.  There was an odd, uncomfortable stiffness to Trowa’s face, as if he was thinking too hard about something too difficult.  Brow furrowed, Trowa opened his mouth.  He paused.  After a second, his mouth closed.  Trowa waited a few seconds and tried again.  His mouth shut even sooner.  Something in his expression loosened; whether it was with ease or realization or resignation, Heero wasn’t sure.  Trowa let out a low, long sigh.

“I don’t think I can do it,” he muttered finally. 

“That’s okay.  I’ll help you.”

Trowa raised his eyes.  They were narrowed and the most focused they had been since he had woken up.  The dull green moved slowly over Heero’s face, lingering for several seconds in one place (his lips, his cheeks, his eyes) before moving on.  Trowa’s mouth flattened, pursed, and smoothed out into a thoughtful line.  He lifted a hand.

Heero took it; Trowa’s hand was cold.  Heero gave the thin, shaking fingers a soft squeeze.  Trowa made a noise and wriggled his fingers.  Heero, tilting his head, loosened his grip.  He frowned as Trowa’s fingers inched towards his wrist and held on loosely.  Then Trowa’s shoulders shifted.  His grip on Heero’s arm tightened as his feet slid across the floor.  Heero slid closer and wrapped an arm around Trowa’s back. 

Between the two of them, Trowa managed to get to his feet and stay there for a few seconds.  He held on awkwardly as Heero moved and righted the trashcan with his foot: one hand clutching Heero’s wrist, one arm slung over Heero’s shoulders, and most of his weight pressed back into Heero’s arm.  Both of them sighed gratefully when Heero helped Trowa onto the upturned trashcan. 

Heero moved Trowa’s hands up onto the edge of the tub.  “Lean back and hold on.”

The shower head was detachable, so Trowa didn’t have to lean too far back.  He still grimaced, although whether it was from the position or the situation, Heero didn’t know.  After a few minutes of the warm, gentle pressure though, Trowa closed his eyes.  Heero smiled a bit and moved the shower head along his scalp.

“Beats the bowl and the chair, doesn’t it,” Heero asked eventually.  He ran his fingers through Trowa’s wet, warm hair, loosening knots and combing out bile and chunks of food. 

Trowa snorted and squirmed.  “Speak for yourself,” he muttered.  Trowa breathed a sigh as Heero’s nails ran along his scalp.  He turned his head slightly.

“At least I can’t pull the tub out from under you.”

Trowa’s eyes opened slightly.  “I did not pull the chair out from under you.”

“No, you kicked it.”

“My foot slipped.”

Heero smiled and shook his head.  He reached for the shampoo nestled in the corner near the wall, leaving the shower head in the tub.  The shampoo was unfamiliar.  Heero wrinkled his nose at the smell.

When he rinse the soap from Trowa’s hair, the water left soft, gray streaks down the tub wall and around the drain.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 1x3 overtones in this chapter are kind of obvious aren't they?


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which certain considerations must be made (and Wufei and Quatre have a bit more time center stage).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the extended silence. A lot of things have happened in the last couple months--including positives, like grad applications, and negatives like some startling news about my mother's health. But I am still working on it, as often as I can (even when I really don't want to sometimes) and it WILL get done.
> 
> I apologize in advance for any grammatical or spelling errors. I don't actually have a beta (I should look into one).
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: possibly some language, alternative lifestyle references

              

Wufei’s first thought was the flu.  Trowa was exhibiting some of its classic symptoms, including fever, shivering, and fatigue.  He had even suggested the illness himself (as part of a lie to the kid-from-before, but the most effective lies had a basis in fact).  It was entirely possible that the flu was circulating the building or the supermarket; they were still in the latter half of the traditional “cold-and-flu season.”               

As he tied off the trash bag’s drawstrings, though, Wufei decided that it couldn’t be the flu.  Yes, Trowa had _some_ of the symptoms but not all of them.  Not by a long shot, and the severity of what he had wasn’t exactly flu-worthy.  The fever was still on the mild side.  The weakness was not as bad as it could be.  And outside of children, influenza didn’t usually include vomiting.              

Wufei’s next thought was some sort of stomach virus, possibly even food poisoning.  Quatre was right; Trowa’s refrigerator (and most of his freezer and a couple of his cabinets) was an almost toxic area.  It would have been easy for Trowa, in his recently-inattentive state, to accidentally poison himself.  And stomach viruses were year-round and easy to pick up.  Either one would explain the stomach sensitivity and the vomiting.               

But while he was leaving the apartment and then moving slowly down the stairs, Wufei decided that it couldn’t have been either of those.  Trowa wasn’t complaining about any sort of abdominal pain—or rather showing any signs of it, because he was being difficult and not complaining or mentioning any symptoms—and that was common in both.  There was also the small matter of the weight loss.  Trowa had always been thin, and always the thin that was just on the right side of healthy.  It was clear to Wufei, though, that Trowa had lost weight recently.  A lot of weight.  Enough to make his skin look dangerously tight.  To achieve that, Trowa had to have been not eating (or at all) for at least a few weeks.  Stomach viruses didn’t last for weeks.  Food poisoning barely lasted for days.               

Which left Wufei with one more idea: anxiety.  Trowa was so emotionally out of sorts that he had made himself sick.  It was an uncommon, but not unheard of, reaction to significant, continual stress.  And there weren’t many ways to describe the last couple months other than continually and exceptionally stressful.               

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much they could do for anxiety or stress-induced illness.  There was no medicine to give him, unless they went to a hospital and Wufei already knew how that conversation would go.  There was no way to really stop his symptoms.  That had to come from Trowa.  They could treat them, they could keep him comfortable, they could try to make him feel safe and relaxed, but until Trowa accepted those last two, it wouldn’t go away.  Not really, not for a while.                

“God damn it, Trowa,” Wufei muttered as he opened the door to the building.  “Why didn’t you come to us sooner?”  _Why didn’t you come at all?_

To be fair, Wufei didn’t think Trowa could have.               

Trowa Barton was private, by nature and, clearly, by experience.  Yes, he was their friend, and yes, he had told them a lot about himself and his past—more, perhaps, than he had ever told anyone before.  For as close as Trowa brought them, however, there had always been some distance.  There had always been the sense that Trowa was holding them at arm’s-length.  Sometimes further.  It bothered Wufei from time to time, especially recently, but he never blamed Trowa; he didn’t think any of them did.  But he also thought that none of them had really understood Trowa’s need for that space between them.               

Until recently               

Wufei tried to put himself in Trowa’s position and honestly couldn’t.  He had always assumed that there were things that Trowa wouldn’t, or couldn’t, discuss with them.  They all had them.  They all had pasts full of brutality and tragedy, betrayals and murders.  Some of them had a little less; some had a little more.  Trowa, though: mercenary from childhood through adolescence, surrounded by men at least three times his age.  A child mercenary with a condition that was probably treated more like an oddity than a medical concern.                

He tried to imagine it: growing up like that.  He tried to imagine growing up and trying to keep it a secret but being exposed.  It had to have happened; it _had_ happened, in a dark alley just a few months ago.  But there had to have been times before.  Wufei tried to imagine it.  He was good with hypothetical situations like this, but this time, his imagination ground to a screeching halt.                

No, Trowa couldn’t have come to them.  Too many variables, too many memories, too many risks.  Trowa couldn’t have done it.  And after Kader—               

That was a mess Wufei didn’t understand at all.                        

Wufei let out a long, slow breath as he stepped out onto the apartment building’s landing.  The evening was cold and moist, the air sharp with the smell of impending rain.  Wufei looked up at the sky and frowned.  Past the orange glow of the street lamps, there were thick clouds.  It would rain tonight.  It would probably start soon.  The walk back to the hotel wasn’t short, and it was cold and miserable in the rain.  Not that any of them were going to leave.  Trowa couldn’t take care of himself at the moment, not to mention that they hadn’t seen or heard from him in two months.  Unfortunately, Wufei didn’t trust the hotel not to cancel their room, hold their belongings hostage, or charge them a ridiculous “absentee” fee.                

Someone _should_ go back and stay in the room tonight.  At the very least, they needed to inform the hotel of their absence, and then possibly move their things here if the hotel decided to be difficult.  Wufei knew how well that conversation would go.              

Wufei was considering (and loathing) suggesting that he head back to the hotel when he heard a shoe scuffle to his right.  He turned.  Down the sidewalk, just coming into one of the circles of street light, was Duo.  He had a plastic grocery bag pulled up each arm like a purse and several in each hand.  When he was within conversation range, Duo inclined his head.              

“He needs to find a closer grocery store,” Duo said, the exertion making his voice a little thinner than usual.              

“It’s not even a mile,” Wufei said.               

Duo snorted.  “You try walking a not-mile with ten bags.”              

Wufei would rather not.  “You volunteered.”               

“Which was stupid of me,” Duo muttered.  He shifted the bags awkwardly.  “Why doesn’t he have a car?  Hot wiring it would’ve been so much easier.”               

“You’re welcome to ask him,” Wufei said before walking down the short front steps.               

“We finally decide to drag him back to the hotel,” Duo asked, nodding towards the trash bag with a tired smirk.               

“He’s light enough for it but still too long in the arm and leg.  He’d never fit.”  And as light as Trowa was, Wufei didn’t think he could carry that much weight concentrated in a plastic bag.               

“True.  What’s in the bag?”               

“Three-quarters of his refrigerator,” Wufei said.  “And a bit extra.”               

“Shit,” Duo muttered.  “Really that bad?”               

“Worse.  Did you bring something for his stomach like Heero asked?”               

Duo nodded.  “And some cold medicine and something for fevers and all the stuff for Quatre.”                      

“Great.  I’ll be upstairs once I find somewhere to toss this.”               

“There’s a dumpster around that way,” Duo said, jerking his head towards the direction he came.  “Saw it on my way out.”               

Wufei followed his gaze and nodded.  “Thanks.”               

“See you upstairs.”               

Wufei walked down the sidewalk towards the edge of the building, glancing over his shoulder only when he was sure he heard Duo go inside.  The errand had done Duo some good, it seemed.  He certainly looked a little bit better than he had when he left.  Fresh air and exercise could do that; so could distraction and distance.  Duo had need all of that.  The last two months had been hard on all of them, but Duo got the worst of it: the disappearance, the search, and then two roommates who weren’t taking either very well.               

Both of whom were also his lovers and cruelly obvious in their not-exactly-platonic concern for Trowa and their irritation with each other.              

Having multiple partners wasn’t unusual to Wufei.  It was a rather accepted practice in several regions on Earth and on several colonies—including his own.  Many of his parents’ friends and acquaintances had a lover, or several of them, that were in no way skeletons in closets or backroom secrets.  His aunt and uncle had had the same lover and loved him dearly.  He came with them to family functions and was welcomed in the family home and at their table.  Wufei had called him “uncle.”               

Wufei was fine with “open” relationships.  More than fine, actually; it was out of respect for Zechs, who was perfectly accepting of open relationships as long as it wasn’t his, that Wufei didn’t look for another partner.  He was happy for the three of them.  He just wished two parts of it weren’t so self-absorbed at the moment.              

They tried to notice, of course.  Heero and Duo had always been almost eerily close, and Quatre was empathetic.  He had to feel Duo’s frustration and concern and emotional fatigue.  The both of them, though, could get startlingly oblivious when they were well and truly focused on something else.  For every sigh they caught, there was one the missed.  They missed the seconds that were now absent from Duo’s lingering touches.  They missed the quickness that his frustration mounted.              

Duo was tired.  He was trying to dedicate his time and energy as they needed it, but he clearly needed more back from them than they were giving.               

With Trowa back and under their care, hopefully that would change.               

A drop of water fell, landing in his hair and slowly sliding down the back of his neck.  Wufei shook his head and hurried around the building.  The dumpster was impossible to miss, even with the light nearby.  The stench was awful.  Wrinkling his nose, Wufei walked up to it.  He held his breath as he opened the lid and tossed the bag inside.  The metal was wet beneath his fingers.  He hoped it was from all the rain.  _It’s probably not._ He was washing his hands as soon as he got inside.                

Wufei heard the sharp patter of rain once he was back on Trowa’s floor.  He frowned.  Hopefully, Trowa had an umbrella somewhere in the apartment that they could use when one of them finally made the wet trek back to the hotel.  Somehow managing to open the door with his elbows, Wufei stumbled back into the apartment.  The couch was still empty, the trash can was back in the kitchen, and Duo and Quatre were shuffling around the kitchen with the groceries.               

He headed into the kitchen and elbowed Duo away from the sink.               

“Two words, ‘Fei,” Duo muttered.             

“Need water,” Wufei said as he turned the water on.               

“What, you kill someone while you were down there?”              

“That dumpster is disgusting,” Wufei said, pouring some dish soap on his palm.  .               

“Well, yeah.  It’s a dumpster.  What’d you expect?”              

Wufei rolled his eyes.  “Well, you can take down the next one then.”               

“Gee, thanks Wufei.  Just what I wanted.”               

Quatre chuckled and shook his head as he closed a cabinet door.  “I’ll take it down while the soup’s cooking.”               

“Finished with the fridge,” Wufei asked.  He turned off the water.  Quatre nodded.               

“Nothing moldy or rotten or expired anymore.  Only fresh milk and eggs and produce.”               

“I hope you saved at least one tupperware,” Wufei said.  Quatre turned, head tilted curiously.  “How are you going to store the soup?”               

Quatre looked between the large empty pot on the stove, the refrigerator, and the trashcan tucked back into its corner.  “I’ll find something,” he said finally.                

“I’ll look,” Duo said.  “There’s got to be some more plastic bits around here.  You start chopping.”               

Wufei leaned back against the counter, well out of the way of Duo’s thorough searching and Quatre’s moving of the cutting board, knife, and vegetables.  He looked around the kitchen and then back at the empty couch.               

“Where are they,” he asked finally.               

“Still in the bathroom,” Quatre said.  “I think Heero’s drying his hair.”               

Quatre said it without any noticeably-negative inflection—and now that he mentioned it, Wufei did hear the distant hum of a dryer—but the knife and cutting board landed on the counter a bit harder than necessary.  His first cuts into the carrots, and then the celery, were almost malicious.              

Wufei bit back a sigh.  He was starting to think Quatre just wasn’t aware of his reactions anymore.  Which would explain a few things.  At least when he started the cabbage, the enthusiasm and force were more appropriate.  Duo hadn’t reacted to the sudden violence at all, apart from pausing for a second before poking his head into a cabinet.              

“Hey,” Wufei called.  “Show me this medicine you got, Duo.”               

Duo didn’t seem particularly glad to be distracted from his search; he rolled his eyes more than once as he got up and headed out of the kitchen.  Duo did, however, give an odd sort of stretch, rolling his neck and shoulders as if he was trying to work out kinks from lingering weight.  Duo had also just been carrying half dozen bags for a mile.  Wufei decided not to read anything into it.               

Duo had left the medications, tucked in their own small plastic bag, on the small dinette table.  Wufei dumped them out.  He looked over each brightly-colored box in turn, read the instructions, warnings, effects, and possible side effects or complications carefully.  They should probably start with the stomach medicine, unless Trowa’s stomach had already calmed down enough for a little bit of food.  Wufei didn’t want Trowa taking anything on an empty stomach.              

Wufei was just about to ask Quatre if he could heat up one of the canned soups before starting the broth when he heard the bathroom door.  He put down the fever medicine and headed for the hall.  Wufei had explored the apartment earlier.  There were two bedrooms—one that looked far more lived in than the other—before the bathroom.  Just as he feared, Heero had walked Trowa past both of them.            

He stopped just outside the hall and folded his arms.  “No.”  Heero’s eyebrows rose until they were behind his bangs.            

“No what,” he asked.              

“No couch,” Wufei said.  “Get him to bed.”               

“The hell, Wufei,” Heero grumbled, shifting as Trowa’s weight suddenly unbalanced.  He tugged Trowa’s arm further over his shoulders.  “The couch is fine.”               

“It is not fine.  Bed, now.”               

Trowa frowned.  “I’m not a child.”               

“We’ll see.  Bed.”               

“The couch was fine before,” Heero said.

“Before, he had passed out and the couch was the closest.  Now, he’s conscious and the bedroom is the closest.  Besides,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder hard, “a night on that won’t do him any favors.  I don’t want to add a fucked-up back to his issues.”               

Heero and Trowa gave him equal looks of exasperation.  Wufei bit back a smile.  It was refreshing, seeing Trowa so much more like himself.  The bath, or whatever Heero had opted for, had been a good idea.  There was a touch of color to Trowa’s cheeks now that might not be fever related.  His eyes were a little clearer.  And the hair hanging around his neck and ears almost seemed to have streaks of familiar auburn.  Maybe tomorrow, Trowa would have the strength to get around on his own.  Maybe the day after.               

Heero rolled his eyes but turned.  Trowa hadn’t expected it.  His feet tangled together and only Wufei’s proximity kept them both from going down.

 _Definitely the day after._                

Duo rushed over as Wufei and Heero tried to carefully balance Trowa between them without slipping.  He gave Trowa a warning touch before pushing him up by the shoulders.  Trowa teetered forward into Heero.  Heero caught him around the chest.                

“This is what happens when you’re all arm and leg and no balance,” Duo said, grabbing one of Trowa’s arms and pulling it towards him.  Trowa swayed back into his chest.  “You knock everybody over.”               

“Shut up Duo.”               

“Think that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me all night.”               

Trowa snorted.  “I’ll rephrase.”              

Duo smirked as he pulled one of Trowa’s arms over his shoulders.  “Don’t trouble yourself.  ‘Fei’s right, the bed will be much nicer.  Come on,” he said, looking over at Heero.  “Lean on us.”               

“Not getting much a choice in the matter,” Trowa muttered.              

“Nope,” he said as Heero got on the other side of Trowa.  Duo glanced over his shoulder.  “Bring the meds.”               

Wufei shook his head.  “Let’s get him some water and soup first.”  He didn’t miss the shudder that went through Trowa’s tense shoulders.  Heero looked back at him.  “He needs something in his stomach.”  Heero sighed but nodded.               

“We’ll keep him awake for you,” Duo said.  Wufei nodded.  He watched the two of them shift Trowa’s weight more comfortably across their shoulders before heading to the bedroom.  When he was sure they would make it all right (even if Trowa’s legs went out from under him again), Wufei turned and headed into the kitchen.                

Wufei didn’t know if Quatre had come out of the kitchen during all that; if Quatre had, he’d done it in a way that Wufei hadn’t noticed at all.  At the moment, though, Quatre was still at the counter, working through his vegetables.  There were several bowls filled with chopped carrots, cabbage, and celery.  He was currently working on onions.                

“Where did you put those cans,” Wufei asked.  “I’d like to get something to stay in his stomach before he takes anything.”                

“That cabinet there,” Quatre said between cuts.  He nodded in the general direction.  “Bowls are in the one next to it.”               

Wufei opened only one wrong cabinet before finding the soup.  It had a slightly metallic smell to it when he opened it, but the vegetables didn’t look too bad when he poured it into a bowl.  Wufei read the can before sticking the bowl in the microwave.  He settled back against the counter near Quatre to wait.               

“You okay,” he asked after a few seconds of listening to steady thump of the knife and the low hum of the microwave.               

“Fine,” Quatre said, turning towards him and smiling.  He held the expression for several seconds before Wufei’s stare forced it to crumple.  Quatre sighed.  “Really.  I’m fine.  Just worried, that’s all.  We all are.”                

“You’re right about that,” Wufei said.  He waited several seconds before stepping away from the counter again.  Quatre’s eyes followed him from the cabinet to the sink before turning back to his vegetables.  Wufei set the glass of water he had gotten, and then the spoon he had pulled out of the drawer, near the cutting board.   The microwave beeped.               

“The thing is,” Wufei said finally, as he brought the warm ( _hot_ , actually; Trowa’s bowls were excellent conductors) bowl over and dropped the spoon in it, “I know why _they’re_ worried.”  Wufei balanced the bowl in one hand, took the glass in the other, and turned.  He almost bit his tongue at the pained confusion that pinched Quatre’s brow.               

Almost.               

“I’m just not so sure about you.” 

*-----*-----*               

Duo was right: sometimes, Wufei was just an asshole.               

Quatre resisted the urge to throw something at his back, if only because his options were limited.  A carrot would have pointless, one of the bowls of cut vegetables would have been both messy and wasteful, and a knife might actually kill him (although Quatre didn’t think it would go that far).  Not imagining the onion under his knife was Wufei’s head took a little more effort.   It was a safe but silly indulgence, and one he hadn’t used for years.  Considering his frustration, though, Quatre ran the risk of making onion useless for the soup.               

And what was vegetable soup without onions?  

Oh but it was tempting.               

Quatre sighed and stepped away from the cutting board.  He didn’t need to make more work for himself.  Arms folded, he glanced around the kitchen.  The pot was on the stove.  He could fill it now.  Stock needed water anyway, and that much water would need time to boil.  He could look for some seasonings and oil, too.  Some of the vegetables would need to be sautéed for flavor, and seasoning would need to be added later.  He nodded to himself.  Practical, helpful change of actions.  Besides, if he couldn’t quite control himself,  the worst he would end up doing  was spill some water or make a little too much noise.  Not that big of a deal.

 

Quatre took the pot from off the stove and set it in the sink.  He turned the water on and left it to fill as he started searching the drawers.  He was sure he had seen a row of spices _somewhere_.  Eventually, he found Trowa’s meager selection in one of the drawers near the refrigerator.  Salt, pepper, garlic, basil, a handful of others.  Nothing fancy but better than nothing, and most appropriate for soup.  Quatre made his choices and shut the drawer. 

He wasn’t quite sure how he managed to catch his fingers.

The hard edge of the drawer pinned his fingers beneath the countertop.  Quatre’s curses covered up most of the clatter of the spice bottles.  It was also brought Duo running.  Duo stood in the entrance of the kitchen as Quatre shoved his fist against his mouth. 

“You cut yourself?” 

“No,” Quatre muttered around his knuckles.

“You sure?  Because that was definitely ‘cut-myself’ swearing.” 

“I caught my hand in the drawer.”               

Duo let out a sympathetic hiss.  “That would do it,” he said.  Duo sighed and shook his head before coming closer.  “Well, spit isn’t going to do anything for you.”  He pulled Quatre’s knuckles from his mouth.  “Come on, under the water.”               

“I banged them, Duo, not burned them.”              

“Think of it as a very wet ice pack,” he said.  Duo led him over to the sink and pushed the pot out of the way before tugging Quatre’s hand under the faucet.  Quatre had to admit: the cold did feel good.               

“We should probably fill that ice tray,” Quatre said, leaning against the sink.              

“He has an ice tray?”               

“It was in the back.”              

“Nice.  I was afraid we were going to have to fill up a plastic bag with water and hope for the best.”  Quatre smiled a bit and shook his head.               

“No, he at least had that.”               

“What were you doing, when you almost broke your fingers?”  The pressure hadn’t been enough for that, but Quatre decided not to argue semantics.               

“I was getting stuff ready,” he said.  He nodded towards the spices on the floor.  “That’s the seasoning over there.”               

“And the pot,” Duo asked as he got down and picked up the spices.                

“Water needs to simmer.”    

Duo nodded.  He put the spice bottles next to the cutting board and then headed over to the sink.  The pot had overflowed earlier.  Water had splashed out of it when Duo moved it, but it was still more than full.  Duo tipped it, pouring out another half inch of water.  Then he picked it up, barely missing the edge of the sink, and took it over to the stove.  The pot landed on the burner with a dull thud.               

“How do you turn this on?”               

“Don’t worry about it.  I’ll take care of it.”               

“You take care of those fingers,” Duo said over his shoulder.  “Besides, I’m not totally helpless in the kitchen.  I can at least boil water.”               

Quatre let him fret over the stove for a couple of seconds before suggesting, “Hold the knob in until it clicks.”               

“I knew that.”               

Quatre walked Duo through starting the stock—setting the water to boil, adding some of the stronger vegetables for a base flavor—and then through getting the right pan and oil for sautéing.  By the time he had the second burner going, Quatre’s fingers were cold instead of sore.  He turned off the water and flexed them: stiff and achy, but none of the sharp pain that would indicate real damage.  He didn’t shoo Duo away, though.  Instead, Quatre leaned against the refrigerator and dried his hands, watching him.               

Duo was right; he wasn’t helpless in the kitchen.  Far from it, in fact.  It was mainly habit, and the genuine pleasure Quatre got from cooking, that kept Quatre as the main provider of meals.  The others could (and often did) take care of themselves, and they took care of Quatre, too.   Heero’s meals were always practical but filling, and occasionally surprisingly savory; Trowa’s particular culinary  needs and lack of experience always meant that his meals were rather simple, but he did know his way around a saucepan and made an excellent pasta.  .               

And Duo found the same pleasure in cooking that Quatre did.  Duo’s ideas about spices and the central flavor and ratios and balance were entirely different from his, but Quatre enjoyed the new sensory experiences.  And he enjoyed coming home or waking up to Duo’s careful clattering and soft humming and not-so-soft swearing.  He liked coming home or waking up to the smells of garlic and onion, or peppers and cloves.  It reminded Quatre of the desert: of lying low together in the house the villagers had let them have.  It reminded him of sharing sleepless nights in quiet conversation about nothing at.  Of watching sunrises with tasteless tea and bland coffee and the crumbs of the first decent breakfast they had had in weeks.                

It reminded Quatre of _Duo_.  It reminded him of why he had been drawn to Duo in the first place, and it reminded him of what he might have forgotten—at least a little bit—in the last few weeks. 

Wufei’s early comments surged to the forefront.   Quatre’s jaw clenched, but then Duo swore and jumped back from the pan.  The irritation flitted away.               

“Did you put in too much oil,” Quatre asked.                

“No,” Duo said as he brushed his forearm.  The pan gave a telling pop.  Quatre rolled his eyes.               

“Shoo,” he said, going back to the stove, “before you set yourself on fire.”               

“I’m not going to set myself on fire,” Duo said, backing away from the pan.               

“With this much oil, you just might.”              

“How much oil do you need?”              

“Not this much.”                

Quatre normally rolled his sleeves up when cooking, partly because kitchens tended to get too warm, and partly because he preferred his clothes stain-free.  With this much oil popping and hissing in the pan, though, Quatre decided that protecting his forearms was a bit more important than overheating or ruining a shirtsleeve.  He tugged them down before picking up some of the onions and carrots.              

“What else can I do,” Duo asked as he glanced around the kitchen.  Quatre shook his head.               

“I’ve got it,” he said.  “Don’t worry about it.”               

Duo stared at him until Quatre had to look up from the vegetables.  Duo smiled—a small twitch at the corners of his mouth that was oddly upsetting but had become common recently—and shook his head.               

“What else can I do,” he repeated.              

“We probably need more carrots,” Quatre said finally.  Duo nodded and started rummaging around in the vegetable crisper.               

“I should’ve bought more carrots.”               

“Just cut up whatever’s there.” 

They fell quickly into a quiet rhythm (after a few qualifying questions about exactly how the vegetables needed to be cut).  Occasionally, they took breaks: Duo to hand Quatre this or that vegetable, Quatre to find vegetables or bowls for Duo.  Soon, too soon really, the sautéing and chopping were done.  Quare dumped the vegetables into the water and took the pan over to the sink.  He considered the next step as he carefully ran water over the hot metal.  If they covered and put the cut vegetables in the refrigerator, they should be fine for the few hours the stock needed.  _There should be plastic wrap or lids somewhere in here._  

Duo found the plastic wrap under the sink.  There was just barely enough to cover all the bowls.  At least there was plenty of space for them between the crisper and the lowest shelf.  Duo handed them to Quatre one by one.              

Quatre was just closing the door when he heard footsteps coming from the hall.             

“Oh so here’s where you ran off to,” Wufei said.                

“Yup,” Duo said, gathering up the cutting board and knife and taking them to the sink.              

“Making yourself a nuisance?”              

“Making myself useful—”               

“Very useful,” Quatre added.  It wasn’t as casual as he hoped.  Thankfully, Duo and Wufei didn’t mention it, although Wufei’s eyebrows arched for a second.  Wufei let out a short, accepting noise before carrying the soup bowl to the sink.  Duo flicked soapy water at him.               

“Don’t dump your leftovers in my dishwater.”              

“You’re doing the dishes.”               

“Yeah, and I don’t need your oily soup in my soap.  Besides, you’ve got, like, half a bowl left.  Put it in the fridge.”               

“You just flicked soap in it—”              

"Then throw it out.”               

“I’m not dumping soup in a trash bag—”              

“Could you two not start,” Heero snapped in a low whisper.  He stood just outside of the kitchen, fist with an empty glass on his hip.  Cold irritation rolled off him in heavy waves, but under that, there was concern.  And under that, the pungent sweetness of an affection that was not his deep love for Duo or his brotherly care for Wufei.              

Quatre nearly gagged.                 

The cloying emotion had one benefit; it had forced Quatre to find himself some steel.  He rocked momentarily (although, really, he should have been ready for it; it had been something of a constant from Heero for the last month) before stiffening and forcing the barrier between them.  It was in no way impressive or impassive, but Quatre was still leaning.  Besides, he didn’t want to sever all contact; his empathy was an asset.  Quatre just wanted to lessen the unpleasant.  He wanted to protect himself. 

Heero noticed.  He always noticed, although whether it was because he had slight empathetic leanings himself or because he was just too observant—Quatre’s shutdowns were far from smooth or discreet—Quatre didn’t know.  His gaze shifted.  The corners of his eyes crinkled and Quatre felt concern, warm and sweet, creeping around the edges of his barrier.  It was, surprisingly enough, a balm against his ravaged senses.  Quatre shivered.  The barrier weakened. 

Which was a mistake, because almost immediately after it came stinging irritation and a disappointment so bitter that it left a sour taste in Quatre’s mouth.   _Idiot_.  He didn’t know if he was referring to himself or heero.    Frowning, Quatre scrambled to put the barrier back up. 

Heero’s eyes narrowed.  His mouth flattened into a hard line before beginning to open.  Thankfully, Wufei cut across whatever he was going to say.

“He finally fell asleep,” he asked.

Heero’s expression smoothed before he nodded.  “Whatever you picked up seems to work, Duo.” 

“It said ‘nighttime’ on it,” he said.  Duo gave a one-shoulder shrug as he rinsed the pan.  “Figured he was down enough that whatever sleep aid they have in those things would work.”

Heero’s jaw clenched.  He hadn’t forgotten about the last time Trowa had taken a sleep aid.  Neither had Quatre.  That, however, hadn’t been a mild one, and they hadn’t known about it.  _And Trowa wasn’t so sick he couldn’t stand._  

“Seems like,” Heero said finally. 

“Between that and the exhaustion, he should sleep through the night,” Wufei said.  He leaned back against the counter.  “Which gives us time.”

Quatre tilted his head slightly.  “Time to what?”

“To talk.”

Quatre swallowed.  His eyes flicked to Heero.  They rounded when he saw Heero glancing back.  Heero held the gaze for less than a heartbeat before moving on to the back of Duo’s head.  Quatre hid his own flick behind several blinks.  He tried not to think about how Heero’s eyes had seemed a little wider than normal. 

“About what,” Duo asked.  He nudged Wufei in the side with the wet panhandle.  Wufei rolled his eyes before shifting to the side and away from the dish drainer he was blocking.

“Oh you know,” Wufei started.  Quatre’s chest tightened.  “How we’re going to get him home, and  _want_ to _come_ home.  What we’re going to tell Une, and the board, and the media.   What we’re going to do about his ‘Tracey’ or whatever, and the hotel.”

Quatre fought back the relieved sigh valiantly.  “The hotel?” 

Wufei nodded.  “Although calling that rat hole a hotel is too kind,” he muttered, making a face.  “We need to decide what to do about our room.”

“Why do we have to do anything,” Duo asked.

“All of our clothes, Heero’s laptop, our guns and badges and paperwork, are in that room.  Not to mention the rental.  We can’t just leave them there.”

“So we’ll go and get them in the morning.”   

“I don’t trust them to be there in the morning.”

Heero glanced over his shoulder, back towards the bedroom.  “We shouldn’t leave him.”

“He’s not in any condition to be moved,” Quatre said.

“He’ll fight us if we try,” Duo said.

“And he shouldn’t be left alone,” Wufei said, shaking his head.  “God forbid he tries to get up and falls, or gets it in his head to move house.”

“Alright,” Duo said, draining the sink and rinsing his hands.  “So someone needs to go back and get our stuff.”

“I really shouldn’t leave this unattended,” Quatre said with a short look to the stove.  The stock needed to simmer for a couple of hours, at least.  The heat was low enough that it shouldn’t boil over.  He decided not to mention that.

Duo backed him up.  “I know nothing about soup.  I don’t trust myself not to fuck it up.”

“Soup is hard to ruin, Duo.”

“I bet I could do it.”   

“I’ll go,” Wufei said.  Heero blinked slowly.

“I could go.”               

“There’s nothing I can do that you can’t.  Besides, he should sleep through the night.  You’ll be fine.”               

Heero’s eyes narrowed.  “You’re not coming back?”         

“I’ll come back in the morning.”               

Duo frowned.  “Why not come back tonight?”               

“One, it’s late.  Two, check out times.  Bet you ten bucks they’re asses about check out times.”             

“Pass,” Duo said.               

“Three, a bed.  Those mattresses are only slightly better than that couch is going to be, but I’ll take one more night of certain, decent sleep.”              

“There is a spare bedroom,” Quatre said.                 

“With a bed big enough for three.  You three.  Not four.  And in his condition, no one’s bunking with Trowa.  So it’s going to be the floor or the couch.  I want one last night in a bed before having to deal with either of those.”              

Wufei had a point.  They had already had one issue with the front desk—and the man who worked it—that had only gotten resolved because Quatre and Wufei had threatened a lawsuit and an arrest simultaneously.  It kept them from paying a ridiculous “additional” fee for four men to one room, but it hadn’t endeared them to the hotel at all.  The man threw them dirty looks more often than not, and muttered much too loudly behind their backs.  Quatre wouldn’t be surprised if he did make check out a small nightmare, or slapped some sort of “absentee” fee onto their bill.            

And space _was_ limited in the apartment.  The guest bed might fit three people, but probably not very comfortably.  Someone was going to end up on the couch, which didn’t look so good, and someone else might end up on the floor, which didn’t look good at all.  They could rotate, of course, but Quatre couldn’t blame Wufei.  The hotel may have been awful but the beds were decent.

And if Wufei left, he would finally, briefly, get away from the tension that still hung between them all.  The three of them could stew in it for all he cared, just as long as he got a few hours’ break.  Maybe they would even reach some kind of conclusion or catharsis if the tension finally broke.  Maybe they just needed a chance. 

At least, that’s what Quatre thought Wufei thought; the light traces of hope flicking out from beneath the heavy, tired frustration couldn’t indicate much else.  Still Quatre shivered and hoped Wufei didn’t have his heart set on coming back to more stability.  It wasn’t going to happen. 

“Fair enough,” Heero said finally.  He sounded oddly reluctantly.  Quatre knew, by the way Heero’s frown deepened and his arms crossed a little too tightly over his chest, that Heero had reached a similar—if not the same—conclusion Quatre had, and that he disliked it immensely.  After a second, though, Heero shrugged and managed a smirk.  “You’re going to get soaked.” 

Wufei looked at the ceiling with a frown.  The rain was pounding.  “I’ve got spare clothes.”

“Yeah, but are they dry yet,” Duo asked.

“They’ve been hanging in the shower for a couple of days.  Something has to be dry by now.”

“Not necessarily, and cold, clammy jeans are the worst.”

“Are they?  I wasn’t sure, but I’ll leave yours outside tonight and we can test that theory tomorrow.”

Quatre shook his head.  “Hit them with the hair dryer, if they’re still wet.”

“Because that will do so much,” Wufei said. 

“It’ll do more than air drying them.” 

“So would an actual dryer.” 

“You could go look for a laundromat,” Quatre said.  “You have the gas, and the time.”          

“And with my luck, it’ll be closed by the time I get there,” Wufei sighed. 

“Or just plain out of business,” Duo said.  

“I haven’t seen an umbrella anywhere,” Heero said, glancing around the kitchen as if momentarily expecting one to appear.  “But it could be in a closet somewhere.”  

Wufei shook his head.  “People generally don’t put wet umbrellas in closets, and it would be wet.” 

“Still,” Quatre said, “it’ll be a long walk.  There has to be something.” 

Although if they didn’t find anything, Quatre didn’t think he’d be too disappointed.  Not tonight, anyway.  Maybe tomorrow.  _Especially if Wufei gets sick._

But Wufei never got sick.               

They found something suitable with some searching: a denim jacket with a hood.  Trowa had been keeping it in the bedroom closet; he didn’t even stir when Duo snuck in and dug it out (against orders).  It was a little bit too long in the arm for Wufei, and a little bit damp, but it was more than enough for an extra layer.  The hood was surprisingly deep and hid most of Wufei’s face.                

“I’ll try to be back by ten tomorrow,” he said after he pushed the hood back enough so they could see him.              

“Make it ten-thirty and bring something for breakfast,” Duo asked.  “I don’t think we have much for that.”              

“I’ll see what I can do.  At the very least, I’m sure there’s a bakery somewhere with cheap donuts.”  Wufei grimaced at his own thought.  Quatre smiled.              

“Donuts are fine.  Bagels would be better.”              

“I’ll look for them first.”               

“Stay safe,” Heero said.               

“Safer than you would,” Wufei said with a smile.  He checked his pockets for wallet and keys  before tugging the hood forward and heading for the door.  Heero followed.  They stopped at the door.  For one long moment, they stood there, silent, Wufei’s head turned towards him slightly.  Then Heero reached around him and unlocked the door.  Wufei left without a word.  Heero closed the door and locked it behind him.               

The silence that followed the click of the deadbolt was heavy and awkward.                

“He’s right, you know,” Duo said once it was clear that Heero wasn’t going to move from the door and Quatre wasn’t going to move from the edge of the kitchen.  “It’s late, and we’ve all had kind of a long day.” 

 _Understatement of understatements._ “Kind of, yeah,” Quatre said.               

Heero made a noise that could have been a chuckle.  “I can’t remember the last time you agreed with Wufei,” he said as he stepped away from the door.               

“I’ve agreed with him plenty of times.  I just don’t let anyone know it.”               

“Including Wufei,” Quatre said smiling.  Duo winked.               

“Especially Wufei.”               

“A full eight hours would be nice,” Heero said.  “I don’t think any of us has gotten that in a while.”               

No, they hadn’t, and the idea of a full night’s sleep in a warm bed—with warm bodies—was enough to send a pleasant shiver down his spine.  He fought it off with an effort he almost immediately regretted.               

“What about Trowa,” Quatre asked.               

“He should sleep through the night,” Duo said.  He rubbed the back of his neck.  “If it’s not the medicine, it’ll just be exhaustion that keeps him down.”              

“We could keep the doors open,” Heero said.  “One of us will hear him if he needs something .”               

Quatre was sure they would; none of them were particularly heavy-sleepers, although the extended lack of war had made them all a little more inclined to just roll over and just ignore some noises or disturbances.  Quatre was also sure, however, that when his head hit some kind of pillow tonight, he wasn’t getting back up for anything short of a firefight.  Judging by the bags under his eyes, Duo was probably going to do the same.  Which meant that only one of them would wake up if Trowa did.  Quatre didn’t doubt that he wouldn’t wake either him or Duo up.               

He tried not to let that bother him, because Quatre didn’t _want_ it to bother him.  He honestly didn’t.  _What is it Duo likes to say?  “Only human?”_ The sentiment had always seemed less bittersweet when Heero or Wufei needed it.               

“Come on,” Duo said.  He stretched slowly before jabbing his thumb towards the hall.  “Let’s check out this guest bed and see how much tetris we have to play.”               

Heero nodded.  “We should probably look for a spare pillow somewhere,” he said.               

“Hey, thighs make excellent pillows.”               

“Only when they’re not pure bone.”               

“Muscle is just as hard but I’ve never complained, thank you very much.”             

“Yes you have,” Heero said as he headed towards the guest room.  Duo rolled his eyes back towards Quatre and smirked.               

“Lies and slander,” he said.  Duo winked at Quatre before turning and following Heero.  Quatre glanced between them and the stove.               

“You go on ahead,” Quatre said, making his decision.  He almost wished he hadn’t; the confusion and disappointment Duo gave off were sharp.               

“Thought you were tired,” Duo said.  Quatre nodded but looked down at his shirtsleeves.  He rolled them up carefully.               

“I really shouldn’t leave the soup.”               

“I’m sure it’ll be fine, if you keep it on low,” Heero said slowly.  Quatre couldn’t stop himself from smiling.               

“Accidents happen, but I’d rather they didn’t.  I think that smoke detector is just for show.” Heero glanced up at the old, dusty unit.  He frowned but still nodded.               

“We could test it.”               

“That’ll wake him up.  I’ll sleep when it’s done.”             

Duo crossed his arms.  “How long will that be?”            

“I don’t know.  Can’t be that long, though, since you helped me out.”  The praise was just enough.               

“Come to bed when you’re done,” Duo said, with a smile that looked sad but could have just been tired.  “I’ll even save you a pillow.  Heero won’t mind.”               

“How kind of you,” Heero muttered.               

Quatre forced out a laugh.  “Go to bed, guys.”               

“We’re going, we’re going.  Don’t stay up too late.”               

“I won’t.”             

Duo, with his hand on Heero’s wrist, turned and headed for the guest room again.  Heero lingered.  Or tried to.  After a second or two, Duo gave his wrist a small tug.  Heero followed him, but before they were in the hall and out of sight, Heero glanced over his shoulder.  From his slightly narrowed eyes came a feeling Quatre wasn’t sure he had felt before.  Sweet and light and inexplicably sad.  It ended when Heero looked away.               

They didn’t close the door (just like Heero had suggested) so Quatre could hear their quiet movements.  They climbed into bed without word after only a couple of minutes; he could hear it creak beneath their weight.  It continued to groan loudly until they were finally settled.  Quatre thought he heard something then: an almost silent murmur, or perhaps a contented sigh.  Almost immediately, though, the wind picked up and lashed the roof and windows with rain, and he couldn’t be even remotely sure he had heard anything.               

Which was just as well.               

Quatre realized, long before he had fallen into a mindless rhythm in the kitchen, that he had been expecting it to go differently.  There should have been a fight, or a ploy.  There should have been arguing, begging, or wheedling.  Coercion.  Something.  He realized that he had been expecting Duo to either pinch the bridge of his nose or glide over and take Quatre’s hands in his own.  He expected frustration or play.  Fierceness or gentleness.  But all he had gotten was resignation.               

He realized, as he tipped bowl after bowl of cut vegetables into the broth far too soon, that Heero might have been leaning towards the gentleness.  Another few seconds, and he might have taken Quatre’s hands.  Duo had stopped him.               

He wasn’t sure he wanted to think about that.               

But Quatre did, after he tossed the empty bowls in the sink and somehow managed to not completely overpower the soup with seasonings.  Then he let it simmer and filled the kettle.  Quatre sat down, his back against the cabinets, to wait, because the last thing he needed was to wake everyone up with a screaming kettle.  And while he waited, Quatre thought.                

Nothing came at first, or at least nothing important.  Quatre let the inconsequential—the dust bunnies lining the bottoms of the cabinets  near him, the draft creeping up his back, the spot of stickiness he accidentally put his hand in—come and go as it pleased.  What he needed to consider was just starting to nudge him when the kettle let out a low whistle.  Quatre scrambled up before it could work itself into a screech.               

Quatre took his tea out into the living room.  The rain sounded even louder out here, without the quiet sounds of the stove to muffle it.  Quatre sat down on the couch.  It was soft and lumpy, and Quatre nearly spilled half of his tea down his front when he sank into it.  He shifted forward until he was only slightly uncomfortable, perched on the edge of the cushion with his mug and hands between his knees.               

He was tired.  Very tired.  He wanted nothing more than to dump the thin tea in the sink and crawl into bed.  Crawl between Duo’s arms.  Crawl between them, if there was space and willingness.  Quatre rarely slept better than when he was nestled in the warm crevice their bodies made, the sleeping rhythms playing quietly along his own dreaming senses.  Quatre wanted to go to bed, where he had been invited, but he couldn’t.  Not until he had thought long and hard about things—a lot of things, including him and Heero and the jealousy that left the worst taste in his mouth—and not until he was sure the invitation had been genuine and not simply expected.               

The tea grew cold in his hands.  When it was undrinkable, Quatre set it down on the floor.  He slid sideways onto the couch and listened to the rain. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At one point, I had this entire story planned out, and then this story took that plan and tore this crucial section of it into itty bitty pieces and throw them out onto the freeway going ninety. 
> 
> Things were supposed to be very different at this juncture (and probably much worse than they are, plot-wise). I'm flying blind essentially, and I know it shows. This is not a tight chapter, or at least it's not as tight as it could be. 
> 
> And maybe someday, I'll come back to it and edit it ridiculously and get it right. Sometimes, though, you just need to get it OUT OF YOUR HANDS and into the world so you can move on. So that's what I did.
> 
> I am sorry, though, that it's really not the best that it could be. I'm hoping to get a better hold of it again in the next chapter (Trowa's coming back, I promise).


End file.
